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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http : //books . google . com/ ^7J^/y THE COMMERCE OF CHRISTENDOM THE MAIM L4NES OF TflAD£ THE DlSTRfCT OF THE HXNSE A FREE GERMAN TOWNS WooJLen. 'Blue • '^upffUeJ, witiv Wool front EntflatuL Spcdrv Jr Hesse, cmd. Corn from Tranre aruL dut ports on ^le Baltic -Exporting Woollen floods all over Chrigtmdom Lincti ' Gvcen ' In do/te cotmeotion wiA tius WooUen Silk (Yelhiwl Inltalv Sicily CatalonicL l^fona &c. These DisU-\4its supplied with WboUai poifds from the mtrih hy Sea, Epochs of Modern History EDITED BY C COLBECK, M.A. THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION F. SEEBOHM EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY. Edited by C. COLBECK, M.A. 19 vols. fcp. 8vo. with Maps. AIRVS ENGLISH RESTORA- TION AND LOUIS XIV. 1648-1678. CHURCH'S BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES. COX'S CRUSADES. CREIGHTON'S AGE OF ELIZABETH. GAIRDNER'S HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. GARDINER'S THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648. GARDINER'S FIRST TWO STUARTS and the PURITAN REVOLUTION, 1603-1660. GARDINER'S(Mrs.)FRENCH REVOLUTION, 178^1795. HALE'S FALL OF THE STUARTS, and WESTERN EUROPE from 1678-1697. JOHNSON'S NORMANS IN EUROPE. LONGMAN'S FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. LUDLOW'S WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPEN- DENCE, 1775-1783. MCCARTHY'S EPOCH OF REFORM, 1830-1850. MOBERLY'S EARLY TUDORS. MORRIS'S AGE OF ANNE. MORRIS'S EARLY HANO- VERIANS. SEEBOHM'S PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. STUBBS'S EARLY PLAN- TAGENETS. WARBURTON'S THE THIRD. EDWARD EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. Edited by theRev.SirG.W. cox, Bart. M.A. and by C.SANKEY,M.A. TO vols. fq>. 8vo. with Maps. BEESLY'S GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SULLA. CAPES'S EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE, from the Assassina- tion of Julius Caesar to the Assassination of Domitian. CAPES'S ROMAN EMPIRE OF THE SECOND CEN- TURY, or the Age of the Antonines. COX'S ATHENIAN EMPIRE, from the Flight of Xerxes to the Fall of Athens. COX'S GREEKS AND PERSIANS. CURTEIS'S RISE OF THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. IHNE'S ROME TO ITS CAP- TURE BY THE GAULS. MERIVALE'S ROMAN TRI- UMVIRATES. SANKEY'S SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES. SMITH'S ROME AND CAR- THAGE, the PUNIC WARS. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY. Epochs of Modern History THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION BY FREDERIC SEEBOHM AUTHOR OP 'THB OXFORD KEFORMERS— COLBT, ERASMUS* AND MORE ' WITH NUMEROUS MAPS fiEW IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1904 Aii right* rgurved /f"<^/7.s_/f HARVARD UNIVERSITY UBRAgr. SUMMARY. PART I. STATE OF CHRISTENDOM CHAPTER I. Introductory. VAUV (a) Tk4 Small Extent of Christendom.— ^xaaXitx than it once had been. The Mohammedan power diecked in the West, but encroachingf rom the East. Kinship between Qiristians, Mohammedans, and Jews, but they hate one another i {Jb) The Signs of New Life in Chrittendotn.—lTi^yxtxsat of the Cru- sades. Inventions. Fall of Constantinople. Revival of learning. Printing 3 c) The widening of Christendom. — Moors driven out of Spain. Dis- covery of America. New way to East Indies. Men's minds pre- rared for great events .4 , , 4* New Era one of Progress in Civilisation. — ^What civilisation is. The old Roman civilisation. Its main vice. Modem civilisa- tion. Its strength. The crisis of the struegle between the old and the new order of things. Plan of this bode % CHAPTER II. THB POWERS BBLONGING TO THE OLD ORDBR OP THINGS, AND GOING OUT. («) T^ lictUsi^ikttl System.— Tht: Ecclesiastical Empire. Rome its capiul. Independent of the civil power. The monks. Power of the tTcdesiutical system, hy its influence over the people, bv its wealth, by the inOL]op<}]y of leammg nnd poliucal influence, wnich all cen- tred la Rame. This Elmpire will be broken up in the Era . . 8 (*) TA^ SiM'fa.fiti Sys/ff».^Tht \RD RKFOKMBRS. {a) The Spirit qf Revival^ Learning and R^orm is earriea from Italy to Oxford. — Distinction suid connection between the Revival of learning and Religious reform. Both against the Sdiolastic system. The reform movement crushed at F1<»ence. Revivers of learning at Oxford. Grocyn and Linacre go to Italy, and return to Oxford. John Colet does the same (1^85-1496) .... (3) Colett More, and Erasmus join injMlemi^vorh. — Colet unites the spirit of the new learning and religious reform. Lectiues on St. Paul's Epistles at Oxford. Attacks the schodmen. He uxces abo the need of ecclesiastical reform. Colet attracts disdples and fellow- workers. Thomas More. Erasmus. Early life of Erasmus. He comes to Oxford. Makes friends with Colet and Thomas More. Comes under Colet's influence (1496-1500) {c) The Oxford Students are scattered till the Accession qf Henry Vlil. — Exactions of Empson and Dudley. More offends Henry VII. The circle of Oxford students formed again in London . y) On the accession of Henry VI JL they commence their fellovf-worh. Hopes on the accession of Henry VIII. The Oxford students in Court favour. Erasmus Greek professor at Cambridge (1500) {e) Erasmus writes his * Praiu of Folly*— -^^x^ on the scholastic theolo^^ns. monks, and popes (1511) .... Summary, ix PACK C/) CoUifnmdt St. PmatT* ScMaoi —It b a school of the ntw learning, and exdtes the malice of men of the old school His smnon on Ecdedastical Reform. Escapes from a charge of heresy (15x0) U) The ConHnental Wart of Henry VIII.. 1511-1519.— Tie Holy Alliance against France. Henry VIII. 's first campaign. Wolsey. Julius II. succeeded by Leo X. Henr^ persists in mvading France. Gains the Battle of the Spurs. Scotch invanon of England. Battle of Flodden. Henry VIII. now joins France against Spain. Louis XII. succeeded by Francis I. Francis I. invades Italy and re- covers Milan. Again SiKun and^ England combine against France. These wars of ki^;s agsiinst the interests of Europe, and tended to make kings absolute. The example of France. Narrow escape of England. Colet preaches against the wars. Erasmus is afi^inst them too, and also More ... ih) The hmdffReJvrm mimed at hyihe Oxftrd Reformert. —Erasmus made a CounalkM- of Prince Charirs Mora drawn into Henrv VIIL's service. The 'Christian Prince' of Erasmus. Mores 'Utopia.' They entered thoroughly Into the spirit of modem dvilisaticxL The character (^ their religious rerorm. The New Testament of Erasmus (x5x6>. The kind of ecclesiastical reform urged by the Oxford Reformers. They aimed at a broad and tole- rant Church, and were Ukdy to om>ose adusm .... CHAPTER IIL THB WITTBNBXRG RSrOKMBKS. (a) Martin Luther becomes a R^ormer. — Luther bom X481. Sent to school and to the University of Elrfurt. Becomes a monk. Adopts the theology of St Augustine, and in this differed from the Oxford Reformers. He removes to Wittenberg. Visits Rome. Reads the New Testament of Erasmus and finds out the difference in their theology (X483-X5X6) 94 (3) The sale of Indnlgences.—lAo X.'s scheme to get money by indul- gences. Offers pnnces a share in the spoU. Krasmus writes bit- teriy against it, but pope and kings will not listen (15x7) . • • 97 {f) Luther s Attach on Indulgences.— TtXztX comes near Wittenberjj; selling bduljsences. Luther's theses aguntt indulgences. He is Wittenberg (X51V-X519) 98 (<0 The Electton o/Charles V. to the ^m//^(x 5x9! —Death of Maxi- milian. Candidates for the Empire. Charles V. elected through the influence of the Elector of Saxony. Extent of Charles VT's rule .100 {e) Luthet^s Breach with Rome. — Luther finds himself a Hussite. Rumoured Papal Bull ae^unst Luther. Luther's pamphlet to the nobility of the Uerman nation, and another on the ' Babylonish Cap- tivity <>/.— Luther^s first appearance before the Diet He asks for time to consider his answer. They give him till the next day. Excitement in Worms. Luther's second appearance before.the Diet His n>eech. Repeats his q;>eech in Latm. Re- fuses to recant The Emperor decides against Luther. Threats of Revolution. The Electors uige delay. Luther leaves Worms. What Luther did at Worms for Germany and iat Christendom . im {e) Edict against Luther.— Ftxn of the papad partv. Rumours of Luther's capture. The Elector of Saxony leaves Worms. Treaty between Charles V. and the Pope. The Ecuct issued against Luther. Letter from Valdez, the Emperor's secretary las (/) Political Reasons for the Decision at Www*.— Rivalship between Spain and France. Intrigues of princes. France the common enemy of the Pope, Spain, and England. Reform refused by the rulii% powers from pohtiau motives \VI CHAPTER V. RBVOLUTION. {ft) The Profhets of Revolution.— Vo^visa feelbe against the Edict I«uther m the Wartbun^. In his absence wilder spirits take the lead. The prophets of Zwickau. Luther comes back to Wittenberg and confronts the proj^iets. His common sense prevails. The prophets driven from Wittenbeig. MQnzer becomes the prophet of the peasantry (1522) .......... 131 [b) The EndofSickingen and Hutten.— 1\m Council of Regency under the Elector of Saxony strives to avert the storm, but meets with opposition. Franz von Sicldneen takes to the sword, but is de- feated and killed. Hutten's death. The peasantry get nothing firom the knights (1523) 134 |r) The Peasants* fKar.— Carktadt and MQnzer stir up rebellion. In- siurection of the peasantrjr in Swabia. Their twelve articles. Not likely to be granted by either Pope, nobles, or Luther. Swabian peasants crushed in April 1525. Insurrection on the Neckar, April 1525. The peasants' revenge for Swabian slaughters. The retalia- tion of the nobles. May 1525. Insurrection in Pranconia. Revolu- tion in the towns of Franconia. Diary of a citizen of Rothenbuiv Summary. xi Insurrecdon in Elass and Lonaine jpnt down. May 1535. Insor- . recdon in Bavaria, the Tyrol, and Carinthia. Mfinzer heads an insurrection in Thuringia. His mad proclamation. Death of MOnzer. The attitude of Luther during the Peasants' War. Who was reallvto blame ? Death of the Elector of Saxony, May 1525 . 136 (test of the Protestant princes. Civil war averted by the Turks attack on Vienna. The Turks driven back. Charles V. turned again upon German heretics. Diet of Augsburg. The ' Augsburg Confession.' Protestant princes form the kague of Sdunalkald for mutual defence. Civil war postponed during Luther's life, but it begins soon after his death. Spanish conquest of Ger- many. Revolt of the Protestant princes. Defeat of Charles V. : his abdication and death. The Peace of Augsburg (1555) and its rule of mock toleration. Evils brought upon Germany by Charies V/s policy . «6a xii Summary, CHAPTER II. REVOLT OP BNGLAND FROU ROMS. PAGS (a) lU Political Character,— \a Eng^latid the revolt from Rome was national and came at first from political causes .... 167 {b) Reasons for Hmry VIII.'s Lwalty to Roppte.— Henry VIII. de- fends the divine authority of the Pope, and writes a book asninst Luther in 1531. He tells Sir Thoma% More of a secret reason for it. Henry^ VIII. 's marriage with Catherine of Axragon. Secret doubts about its validity. Its unsatisfactory beginning. Its validity rest«l on the divine authority of the Pope. Henry VIII/s anxiety about it and the succession. His anxiety to keep on good terms with the Poi>e and Charles V. Execution of the Duke of Buckingham for having his eye upon the suoeesaon to the throne (1591) . . 167 (c) Sir Thomas More defends Henry VIII, against Lnther.—Efkct of the knowledge of Henry VIII.'s secret reas(mslished by constitutional means. The power of Parliament m ai n tai n e d . It presenred its control over taxation, and over the making of new laws. On the whole, the Parliaments of Henry VIII. deserre well of Englishmen. Unjust state trials the chief dIoC on the reiiqi of Henry VIII. England &red much better than France and Spain 191 CHAPTER III. KKTOLT OP DBNMAKK AND SWBDBN AND (LATBK) OF THB NBTRBRLANDt. (a) Dtmmark and ^uMdSm.— Both Denmark and Sweden throw off the yoke of Christian II., and then separate. The Swedes elect Gus- tavus Vasa king. Sweden, under hun, becomes a Protestant nation. Denmark also, under her new long, becomes Pkotestant (x5a5-is6o)i 193 (Q The Rrooli ^ tht Nethtriands^-^oViCfcX Philip II. to subject the Netherianders toSpain andto Rome. They revolt, and the ' United Provinces' become a Protestant nadoa (1581) 194 CHAPTER IV. TUB GBNBTAN BBFOBMBBS. ^) Ris* of a tuw Sckcd of Rtform (istfi-x^^ij.—A Protestant move- ment which was not national, but which influenced the Protestanu of France, EnsJandL Scotbtnd, and America more than Luther did . 195 (^ yokn Cahnn.'-litM 'Institutes ' gave logical form to the ' Cahrinistic ' doctrines. Calvin settles at Geneva. Becomes a kind of dictator of the Genevan state. His severe disdpline and intolenmce. He founds tr^ffft V 050^x564) . . ...... X96 (c) Jnflutnct of ike Gonnnm School on H^tsttm ProUsttmtism.—Thit French HugutnoU, the Scotch Covonantort, the English Pnritans, the Pitrrim Faihora of New England, all of the Genevan school Their historical in^rlanoe, and influence on nationa] character . 198 CHAPTER V. BBPOBM WITHIN THB CATHOUC CHUBCH. («) The lUUian Reformer,— JLt\ittt at Reform withm the Church. Improvemeri in the character of Popes. The Mediating Reformers ofltily. Vakles, Pole, Conurinl Paul III. makes some of them Gardimda Chances of a reconciliation with Protestants under Phul III. Contarini and Melanchthon try to make peace at the Diet of Ratisbon, but the Vop« draws back, and Luther hIso. everything left over dn the Council of Trent (1S34-Z54X) . 199 xiv Summary, (^) The new Order ^ ike Scctety ^ Jenu (1540)1— Ignatius Loyok. a Spanish knight Wounded m zsaz. Resolves to become a.gencnl of an army of saints instead of soldiers. His austerities. Resolves to found the 'Order of Jesus.' To prepare himself, studies at the Univeraty of Paris. At Pkris meets Ftands Xavier. Xavier becomes a disciple and the great Jesuit misaonary to the Indies* Qiina, and Tapan. Character of the Jesuits. Their success and influence. (>uses of their ultimate unpopularity .... 903 (r) The Council of TVvm/.— Council of Trent meets in 1545. The Jesuits prevail over the mediating reformers. The IiMuuution mtroduced into Rome by Carraf&, afterwards Pope Paul Iv. The Council adjourned till ZC55 under Paul IV. The Roman Catholic Church reformed in morals, but made more rigid than ever in creed »o6 CHAPTER Vi. THB FUTURB OF SPAIN AND FRANCB. («) The Future ^ Speun, ~ Growth of absolute monarchy in Spain. Philip II. in dose league with the Papacy. Seeks to estapHsh Spanish and Papal supremacy together. Fatal results of his policy ao8 \f) The Future of France. — Everything sacrificed to gratify the am- bition of the absdute monarchy under Francis I. The curse which the absolute monarchy was to France. Struggle with the Hugue- noU in France. Massacre of St Bartholomew in 1570. Totera- tion for a time under the Edict of Nantes. lu revocation in 1685. and the banishment of the Huguenots, who came to England . azo CHAPTER VIL GBMBRAL RESULTS OF THB BRA OF THB PROTBSTANT RBVOLUTION (O) On the Growth 0/ National Z^^.— Influence of the Protestant Revolution on national life — ^where it succeeded — ^where it fiuled — where it partly failed and partly succeeded . . . . aia {b) On the Relations of Nations to each other, — Small improvement in the dealings between nations. The Oxford Reformers not listened to in^ this. Henry VIII. the last English king to dream of re- covering France. Hugo Grotius afterwards urges International reform ... au (^) Injluenc*. m$ the Growth of National Langitages and Literature. — llucher^s Bible and Hpnns fix the character of the Gennan lan- guage. Influence of Calvin's writings on the French language. Influence of Tindal's New Testament on the English versicm of me Bible, and so upon the English laiu^ge •14 (^vonarola. Colet, Luther, Calvin, Knox, the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Jesuits 3t6 (e) Influence on Domestic Z-j^.— Political importance of domestic life. Danger to it ftom the existence in a country of large celibate classes. Dissolution of monasteries and permission to the clergy to marry, a step gained for modem dvilisauon . ai) ff\ Influence on popular Relii^OH.—Th» Protestant movement popo- ^'^ lansed saligion, and strengthened individual amvicdon . . aif Summary, xv f/^ Wmnt ^ Pivgrtu in TVArni/im.— Change from Catholic to Pro- testant creeds was dumge from nopi«- enlarged the scale on which it was waged. The recent conquests of the Turks were indirectly the cause of new life to Christendom. They re- Revival of suited in a great revival of learning in Europe. i«aroJn«- Driven from the East, learned Greeks and Jews came to settle in Italy. Greek and Hebrew were again studied B 2 State of Christendom, PT. L in Europe The literature, the history, the poetry, the philosophy and arts of old Greece and Rome were re- vived. And the result was that a succession of poets, painters, sculptors, and historians sprang up in Christen- dom such as had not been known for centuries. Above ^ . . all, the invention of printing had come just Jn time to spread whatever new ideas were afloat with a rapidity never known before. (c) The Widening of Christendom. So it is easy to see there were abundant signs of new life in Christendom, however small, and hemmed in, and threatened she might be. A new era was coming on, and now observe how Christendom was widened, and fresh room found for the civilisation of the new era to work in. (i) In 149 1 the Moors were at last and for ever driven out of Spain by the conquest of Granada by driven out of Ferdinand and Isabella, and men felt that a Spai» turn had come in the tide of victory in favour of Christians. (2) In 1492 came the discovery of the New World by Columbus, followed up by the Spanish conquests of Discovery of Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese settlements America. jn Brazil, and the gaining of a foothold in the New World by Sebastian Cabot for England — the embryo of those great colonies, the New England, or extension of England across the Atlantic, in which half the English people now dwelL (3) In 1497 Vasco de Gama sailed for the first time round the Cape of Good Hope, and a new way was opened New way to to Asia and the East Indies, and out of this in East Indies. ^^^ far future came England's Indian Empire and Australian colonies. CH. I. Introductory, 5 Looking again at the map, and adding to the Old World the countries coloured in shadow which were brought to light mostly during the childhood of the men of the new era, we cannot wonder that they spoke of them as belonging to a * new world' And bearing in mind that having reached the West Indies, knowing of no Pacific Ocean between, they thought they had reached the East Indies from the west, and so had been, as it were, round the worlds we may realize how grand the new discoveries must have seemed to them. Men of that day did not of course see what we know now, how wide a field these new discoveries would open for Christian civilisation to extend itself into. But still they gave an inmicdiate feeling of relief to pent-up Christendom, a spur to commerce and maritime enterprise, new light to science, new sources of wealth, and new direction to the prepared for energies of nations, and more or less to all ^*** events, men a sense that they were living in an age of progress and change which prepared them to look into the future with hope, and to expect great events to happen in their time. {d) The New Era one of Progress in Civilisation. In what Modern Civilisation consists. The work of the new era was to gain for Christendom a fresh step in the onward course of civilisation. And when we speak of advance in civilisation^ what do we mean? Not simply advance in popu- whatciviii- lation, wealth, luxury, but far more, that which «*»<»" »*• lies hid in the derivation of the word, viz., advance in the art of living together in civil society. And in order clearly to understand the work that was to be done in this era of progress, the difference must be marked between (i) the old form of civilisation State of Christenaam. FT. I. The old Roman dvilisaiion. which was to be left behind and (2) the new form of civili- sation towards which fresh steps were to be gained. (i) The old Roman civilisation had come about by the conquest of the uncivilised tribes of Western Europe by the Romans, — ^by their uniting the known world in one great empire. Its ends were brought together by roads, commerce was encouraged, and Latin became the language understood by the educated all over it. Rome was the centre T^ V ^-.^ CT "WV ofitalL The Roman '^' ' ' ^ ''■''' Empire was in fact a network of Roman towns, with all the threads of it drawn towards Rome. These town s were camps,from which the conquerors ruled the districts roimd. Little account was taken of the coim- try people. They were looked upon as hopelessly rustic and barbarian. Under this system all the conquered countries were made pro- vinces of the Roman Empire, not for their own but for lumain the conquerors' good. The masses of the ^"^- people were governed by Roman governors for the benefit, not of themselves, but of a small number of Roman citizens. This vice— this blot — ^in the Roman poUty was no doubt the cause of its decay. (2) The aim of modem civilisation is obviously far Modern higher than this. It has not yet reached its dvUisation. g^^^ ^yt jj h^s been tending towards, not one vast universal empire, but the formation of several compact and separate nations, living peaceably side by side, respecting one another's rights and freedom. cH. L Introductory. 7 And, looking within each nation, it has aimed at making all men, town and country, rich and poor alike, citizens for whose common weal the nation is to be governed, and who ultimately shall govern ^^ strcneth. themselves. In this aim of modem civilisa- tion to secure the common weal of the people lies its power and strength. Now the passage from the old decaying form ol civilisation to the new, better, and stronger one, involved a change ; and this change must needs take . place slowly and by degrees. The old order the^sSS^ie of things had gradually for long been going ^d^^' out ; the new order of things had gradually new order for long been coming in. But m this era was to be the crisis of the change — the final decisive struggle between the two forces ; and in this lies its importance and its interest Before we begin the story of this struggle, we must briefly consider what it was in the state of pianofUm Christendom which brought it on ; and this book, will be done best by our examining — (i) The powers which belonged} to the old order of things, and were now dying out (2) The state of the modem nations which were growing up in their place. In doing so, we shall try to lay most stress on the condition of the masses of the people; and this will bring out clearly some of the main points in which, W modem civilisation was to go on, there was a necessity for reform, and the danger there was that, if the needful reforms were much longer withheld, there would be revolution. Then in Part II. will come the story of the struggle ; and in Part III. its results on the different nations. We shall end with trying to take stock of the amount of pro- gress gained during the era, and to look forward at the prospects of the future that arise out of it State of Christefidom, n. V CHAPTER II. THK POWERS BELONGING TO THE OLD ORDER OF THINGS, AND GOING OUT. (a) The Ecclesiastical System. Western Christendom was united under one Eccle- siastical system — the Roman, or, as it called itself, the ' Holy Catholic' Church. It was, in fact, a great Ecclesiastical Empire, of which Rome was the capital, and the Pope of Rome the head. iTie Ecde- ^"^ P^^ generations there had been schisms •mistical — 1>. for a while there were two rival Popes Rometiie" excommunicating each other — but after much capital trouble and scandal the schisms had been ended, and now all was one again. Europe was mapped out into ecclesiastical provinces, at the head of each of which was an archbishop. Each province was divided into dioceses, with bishops at their head, and each diocese into parishes, each with its parish priest. Thus there was an ecclesiastical network all over Europe, all the threads of which were drawn towards Rome, and held in the hands of the Pope and his cardinals. This ecclesiastical empire kept itself as free as pos- sible from the civil power in each nation. It considered itself above kings and princes. It was more of thedvi?* ancient than any of their thrones and king- pow«r. doms. Kings were not secure on their thrones till they had the sanction of the Church. On the other hand the clergy claimed to be free from prosecution cH. II. The Ecclesiastical System, 9 under the criminal laws of the lands they lived in. They struggled to keep their own ecclesiastical laws and courts, many of them receiving authority from Rome, and with final appeal, not to the Crown but to the Pope. In addition to the parochial clergy, there were many orders of monks and friars. The friars, especially of the Dominican and Franciscan rival mendicant orders, swarmed everywhere. In most towns there were one, two, or half-a-dozen monastic houses, and so numerous were the members of these religious orders that they had become, by the favour of the Popes, more important and powerful in many ways than the parochial clergy. It is essential to mark what a power this eccle- siastical-system wielded over the nations. The „ . , «. .,,,. ,.« t « 1 Power of the ecclesiastics held m their hands the keys, as ecciesiastica] it were, not only of heaven but of earth. system. Practically they alone baptized ; and married people (though unmarried themselves). They had the charge of men on their death-beds ; they alone , influence buried, and coald refuse Christian burial in over the the churchyards. They regulated the dis- p***^*' position of the goods of deceased persons. When a man made a will, it had to be proved in their eccle- siastical courts. If men disputed their claims, doubted their teaching, or rebelled from their doctrines, they virtually condemned them to the stake, by handing them over to the civil power, which acted in submis- sion to their dictates. It will be obvious at once how great a power all these things must have given them over the minds, the fears, the happiness, and the lives of the people. The ordinary revenues of the clergy were large. They had a right to ' tithes ; ' Le, to a tenth part of by its the produce of the whole land of Chxisten- wealth; lO State of Christendom. pt. i* dom. This had belonged to them for hundreds of years. In addition to this they claimed fees for almost everything they did. The friars, according to the niles of their founders, ought to have got their livmg by begging ahns in return for their preachings and their prayers for the living and the dead But their vow of poverty had not kept them poor. People thought that by giving property ta the religious orders they could save their souls ; so rich men, sometimes in their lifetime but oftener on their deathbeds, gave them' large possessions. In spite of laws passed by the civil powers to prevent it, it was said that they had got about a third of the land of Europe into their possession. Thus the revenues and riches of the clergy were larger than those of the kings and princes of Europe. These were not the sole secrets of their power. Fron^ the fact that the clergy were almost the only educated people in Europe, they became the lawyers nopoljoT and diplomatists, envoys, ambassadors, mi- learning nisters, chancellors, and even prime minis- ters of princes. They were mixed up with the politics of Europe, and the reins of the State in most countries were in the hands of ecclesiastics. They received pro- and poUticai motion to bishopries very often in return toi influence. guch political services. We cannot fail to see how vast the political power of such an ecclesiastical system as this must have been. The Pope, through his army of ecclesiastics all over Christendom, had the strings in his hand by which to influence the politics of Europe. And one oentmi in of the great complaints of the best men of the Rome. ^2^y ^^g jj^j^t this political influence was used by Rome for her own ends instead of the good of Europe, and that the inmiense ecclesiastical revenues tended to CH. IL The Ecclesiastical System, II flow out of the provinces into the coffers of the Popes and cardinals of Rome. All this of course ten- ded to hinder the ^. ^ . growth and inde- wUibe pendence of the t«>i^"«P. separate nations, and to prevent all classes within them from becoming united into a compact nation. It was one great work of the era to break up this ecclesiastical empire — to free several nations (those marked white on the map) from its yoke. So that Rome was nc longer to be the capital of Christendom. ip) The Scholastic System. There was another power in Europe which was Roman and not national ; which tended to keep classes of people apart, and so stood in the way of the growth of national life in the separate nations. The learned world was a world of its own, severed from the masses of the people by its scholastic system. All the learned men in Europe talked and The learned wrote letters and books in Latin— the Ian- J^J^tiSt^ guage of Rome. Some of them did not Latin, even know the common language of the countries they lived in. And as Latin was the language of learning, so Rome was the capital of the learned world. Thus the learned world was closely connected with the eccle- siastical systcnL Learned people were looked upon as belonging to the clergy ; and the Pope had long claimed them as subjects of his ecdesiasti- and belonged cal empire. So for centuries in England a tothedctgy 12 State of Ckristendoffi. pt. i. man convicted of a crime, by pleading that he could read and write, could claim benefit of clergy, ue, to be tried in an ecclesiastical court, and this by long abuse came to mean exemption from the punishments of the criminal law of the land. This tended to give to knowledge and learning a clerical or scholastic character. Knowledge was tied down by scholastic rules which had grown up in times learning ^ when the ecclesiastics were the only educated scholasbc, p^Qpjg^ ^he mediaeval scholars — *the school- men' as they were called — looked at everything with ecclesiastical eyes. All knowledge had thus got to be looked upon almost as a part of theology. Matters of science — €,g. whether the earth moved round the sun shackled o^ the sun round the earth — were settled by idence, ^g^tg ffQ^i the Bible, instead of by examining into the facts. So there was no freedom of inquiry even in scientific matters. A man who made discoveries in science might be stopped and punished if he found out that the ecclesiastical authorities were wrong in anything. Under the scholastic system the Christian religion, which in the days of Christ and the apostles was a Uiing andreUgionOf the heart (love of God and one's neigh- also, bour), had become mixed up with a mass of human speculations. The chief handybook of the theo- logy of the schoolmen was a great folio volume of more than I, GOO pages. Thus the scholastic system tended to keep both science and religion the property of a clerical class, and out of the hands of the common people, to whom and kept Latin was a dead language; while at the Ac ooramon Same timc it kept the learning even of the people. learned world shackled by scholastic rules. It is important to see this clearly, because one great CH. IL The Scholastic Systefn, T3 part of the work of the new era was to throw the gates of knowledge open to all men, and to set the . minds of men free from this clerical or scho- meo^free- lastic thraldom — to set both science and *^®™- religion free, for freedom was as important to the one as it was to the other. Without it there could be no real progress in civilisation. The universities were the great centres of ^he Univer the learned world. •We«- '/ixi U N I VE R S r T I ES, Thasi fou n ded htfcj-r J^o u n dt rli n fd . There were thirty or forty of them scattered over Europe, and they were in more or less dose connexion with each other. Most of them are marked on the map, and those founded before 1400 are underlined. The oldest and most celebrated were Oxford and Cambridge in England, Paris zn^ Orleans in France, Bologna znd Padua in Italy, and Salamanca in Spain, Prague in Bohemia, and Cologne in Germany. These, at the banning of the State of Christendom. n. L era of the Reformation, were all more than a htindred, and some two hundred years old The youngest uni- versity in Europe was that of Wittenberg, founded in 1502 by the Elector of Saxony. Students were in the habit of passing from one uni- versity to another. Oxford students would pass on to Paris, and from Paris to Bologna, to take their pass from one d^;rees. And wherever there happened to be to another. ^ famous professor, thither students from all other universities flocked. Now the result of this was very important As one example, we may take the great movement in the fourteenth centiuy in the direction of reform. Wiclif wrote books in Latin at Oxford. They were copied and read all over Europe. Oxford students went Theresukof to the newly-opened university at Prague, ^in die wiclif s writings made as much noise, and Wicii£ were as well known in Bohemia as they were in England. Huss and Jerome of Prague became the Bohemian successors of the English Wiclif, and thus the movement in favour of reform was transplanted from one country to another. What was discussed among the learned soon trickled down into the conmion talk of the people. So there arose out of Wiclif s movement the Lollard disturbances in England and the Hussite wars in Bohemia. What had thus happened before in the days when books were multiplied only by the slow work of the pen was still more likdy to happen again in the days of the printing press. We shall see how in the new era these things were re- peated — how the spirit of revival of learning and religious reform spread, first among the learned from Will here- . . . .,** , peatedinthe University to university by students passmg new era. fxom. One to another, now in Italy, now into CH. n. The Scholastic System, 15 England, now into Germany, and how at last it trickled down into the minds of the conmion people all over Europe. The fact that both the ecclesiastical system and tfie learned world were coextensive with Christendom, and so closely united together, gave to Christendom a unity which alone made the work of the era possible. It was as though, in spite of distance and the diffi- The work of culties of travelling, learned men were nearer ** ***• together than even now, in these days of railroads and steamboats and tel^^phs. The work of the era was to rend Christendom asunder. Rome was no longer to be her capital The Pope was no longer to be recognised every- where as her spiritual head. The Latin language was no longer to be the common tongue of literature and books all over Europe. Young nations were to divide Europe between them, to have their own churches and clergy, their own languages, their own literature, their own learned men and universities, and so to become more independent of each other and of Rome. And this was one of the stages through which Christian civilisation was to pass in its onward course. if) The Feudal System^ and the force: which were breaking it up. There was another system which was opposed to the growth of modem nations — the feudal system. The feudal It belonged to the old order of things, and «!««>»• was fast decaying and going out. The feudal system hindered the growth of free na- tions, not by tending too much to keep up the Divided unity of Christendom, but by dividing coun- SJJ^?j^ tries up into innumerable petty lordships. lordships. Each feudal lord was a little sovereign both as re- gards those below him — ^his vassals and serf^ — and also i6 State of Christendofn, ft. l as regards his ^ello^vs, except so far as he and they wete controlled by higher feudal powers above them. He waged what petty wars he chose with his neighbours, and lorded it over his inferiors, whilst himself very jealously resisting any unusual interference from powers above him. The feudal system had already shown Decay of the . r /• «• • ,. feudal Signs of falung to pieces, and m some countries system. j^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ In some countries the petty lordships had fallen quite under the power of the Crown. By a long process, some of the feudal lords had grown aibjectionof '^ power, while the multitude of smaller ones feudal lords had sunk into ever-increasing insignificance. Especially in coimtries where by the rule of inheritance lordships descended to a single heir, there was a natural tendency for lordships to unite by marriage and inheritance. The greater families inter- married and grew richer, and the royal families thus gradually and naturally rising in power and influence kept swallowing up more and more into themselves. We snail see that it was so notably in France. The process went on more slowly in Germany, where the rule of inheri- tance was division among the male heirs, and so the ten- dency was towards more and more division, and an ever- increasing host of petty lordships. In Germany the feudal system was still in full force, and we shall see by- and -by how it prevented her from growing into a compact nation, and how much she had to suffer for want of thf nobles being subjected to a central authority able to preserve the public peace and to curb their Increasing ; , '^ . "^ ^ , . power of the lawlessness and tyranny. But speaking gene- Crown, j^y^ things were more and more working in the new era towards the complete subjection of the feudal nobility in each nation to the central power, ue, towards the supremacy of the Crown. CH. II. The Feudal System, 17 But commerce was breaking up the feudal system £aster than anything else, and conunerce had its chief seat in the towns. Trade, commerce, and manufactures were the life of the towns. The little towns were the markets of the country round, and their trade lay between the peasan- ^he growth try and the bigger towns. These, in their turn, of commerce. lived upon the share they had in that wider conmierce of the world, of which, by the aid of Map No. 2 (at the beginning of this volume), we must now try to grasp the main features. The Crusades had done much to open up a commerce between Asia and Europe. This conunerce ^ d f k* with the East was mostly in the hands of the Meditemu great cities on the Mediterranean Sea. The °**°* new way to the Indies was not yet open. The products of the East, its spices and its silks, were carried overland from the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to the Levant, and then shipped to the ports of Italy. Silk manufactures were also carried on in Italy, in Catalonia in Spain, and at Lyons in France. These eastern products and silks were the chief exports of the Mediterranean merchants. The commerce of the North Sea was equally important The woollen manufactures of the north were its chief feature. Spain and some parts of Germany exported wool, but England was the great wool-growing country. The wool was woven into cloth in the looms of the eastern counties of England, and in Flanders, on nj^n^j^^u. the opposite shore of the North Sea. These Cactiuing were the chief manufacturing districts, though "'"^^ other towns in England, up the Rhine, and in Germany, had their weavers also. There were also considerable linen manufactures in the north of France. The North Sea was the great fishing ground, and dried fish was a great article of commerce The when during Lent and on every Friday all fisheries. Christendom hved upon fish. 1 8 State of Christendom. vt, l There was also a trade in furs and sldns with North Russia, Norway, and Sweden. This commerce of the North was carried on by the Hanse towns — ^reaching from the shores of the Baltic westward to the Netherlands, and inland in meree of the Germany as far south as Cologne. There were HMuietowna. ^jgij^y towns belonging to this league, and they had stations or factories at Novgorod, Bergen, London, and Bruges. Bruges in Flanders had been, and now Antwerp was the great • central mart of the commerce of the world. Brufres and Here the merchants of the North exchanged ^tadSuSte *^^''* &^*^s ^*^ *^® merchants of the ofcommerce. Mediterranean. Here their ships met and divided the maritime commerce of the world be- tween them. Here, too, the maritime met the inland and overland trade — inland trade with the German Lines of towns, Overland trade up the Rhine, maritime, through Germany, over the Alps, by the oUrUwid Brenner and Julier passes into Italy. There *™*'*' was much trade between German and Venetian merchants, and the contemporary historian, Machiavelli, states that all Italy was in a manner supplied with the commodities and manufactures of Germany. Since the Netherlands had fallen into the hands of the House of Austria, and Maximilian was Emperor of Germany, there had also naturally sprung up a trade between the Rhine and the Danube. These were the great lines of trade, and in these lines lay the chief commercial towns, living on their share in the commerce of the world. Under the feudal system the towns had once been mostly subject to feudal lords, but they had had mostly early shown their independent spirit, and re- vot free. belled, or bargained for chaitc4^ of freedom. CH. iL The Feudal System. 19 A free town was a little republic, organized for protection from foes without and for peaceful trade within. The members of each trade were banded together into guilds for mutual protection, and there was generally a sort of representative government — an upper and lower council of citizens, by whom the town was governed. We can easily understand how likely the towns were to hate the feud^ lords, whose petty wars dis- turbed the public peace and made commerce towns hated hazardous. They had to fortify themselves '«"**»"«« against these petty wars, and their cavalcades of mer- chandize had to be protected by soldiers on the roads. So there had grown up out of conmierce an anti-feudal power in Europe. In almost every country the towns banded themselves together against the favouied the feudal system, and when the power of the ^"^^^ Crown began to rise, the towns were the stepping-stones by which it rose to the top. Kings invited the towns to send burgesses to the national Diets or Parliaments, and they were a growing power in almost every State. There was yet another most numerous and most im- portant class affected by feudalism— the peasantry. The labouring peasants had in some countries not The pea- yet risen out of a condition of serfdom. santiy. Let us understand what this was. The tribes who conquered Northern and Western Europe were a land- folk — people living by the land. They settled in villages, and all the land belonging to each Once more village belonged to the community, as it does now. now in Swiss valleys. The people were tenants only of their little allotments, with common rights over the unallotted pasture, woods, forests, and rivers : ue, they bad a common or joint use of them. But the old rights of the communities had fallen more and more into the hands of manorial lords. 20 State of Christendom, rt. l The peasantry became tenants of these lords, paying rents somethnes m money, but chiefly in services of labour on their lords* lands. The lords, moreover, claimed more and more of the unallotted portion of the conmion lands as their own. The serfs were not allowed to leave their land^ because it would rob the lords of their services. So the lords held their peasantry completely in their power. This was serfdom when in full force. In some countries it was still in force, in others it had almost disappeared. In those countries where the lords were most sub- iected to the Crown, as in France and England, the Where the peasants were likely to be best off and farthest central advanced on the road to freedom. In those power was weakest, in which the feudal lords were least sub- UngerS ducd, and the central power least formed, longest. as in Germany, we should expect to find serfdom lingering on And it was so. As the towns were often enemies of the feudal nobility, so they were often the friends of the peasantry. Com- merce introduced everywhere money pay- andcom- ments instead of barter. Payment of rent in JJJJ^*5yg^_ services of labour was an old-fashioned kind domofthc of barter. Commerce, therefore, helped to ******" ' introduce money rents and money wages, and where these were early introduced, as in France and England, the condition of the peasant was much im- proved. But more than this ; labour was often wanted in the towns : the wages paid in the towns often tempted the peasant to desert his land and his lord, and to flee to a town. The towns favoured this immigration into them of runaway serfs, and there grew up in some countries a settled rule of law that after residence in a town a year and a day they could not be reclaimed. Thus by slow degrees the feudal system was breaking CH. HL Italy, 21 up under the influence of commerce and the combined power of the towns and the Crown. The petty lordships were becoming united into the larger unit of the nation, but we see on the other hand what a danger there was of the nation becoming divided into hostile classes. How were classes so contrarient as the feudal lords, the townspeople, and the peasanuy, to be blended in one national life? This was the great problem modem civilisation had to solve, and some nations succeeded much better than others in solving it CHAPTER in. THE MODERN NATIONS WHICH WERE RISING INTO POWER. {a) Italy, No country had made less progress towards becoming a compact and united nation than Italy, the Not a united very country in which Rome, the capital of nat>o» Christendom, exercised most influence. The contemporai^ historian, Machiavelli, shows how Rome was the cause of Italy's ruin and dis- „ ' Rome, ac- Unity. cording to He says : ' Some are of opinion that the SJ* afulifo/ welfare of Italy depends upon the Church of ^^^ disunity Rome. I shall set down two unanswerable reasons to the contrary : — ' (i) By the corrupt example of that court Italy has lost its religion and become heathenish and irreligious. ' (2) We owe to Rome also that we are become divided 22 State of Christendom. rt, i. and factious , which must of necessity be our ruin, for no nation was ever happy or united unless imder the rule of one commonwealth or prince, as France and Spain are at this time. And the reason is th at the Pope^ though he ^ claims temporal as well as spiritual jurisdiction/4s.jiot strong enough to rule all Italy himself, and whenever he sees any danger he calls in some foreign potentate to help him against any other power growing strong enough to be formidable. Therefore it is that, instead of getting united under one rule, Italy is split up into several prin- cipaUties, and so disunited that it falls easily a prey to the power not only of the barbarians, but of any one who cares to invade it This misfortime we Italians owe only to the Church of Rome.' That these words of Machiavelli were too strictly true, we shall judge from the facts. We have seen what was the power of Rome. If exerted in favour of Christian civUi^jjion how many blessings might not the/^ CK^^ Jiave earned i centre of But it was notorious to everyone living at the "**'*°°*^ time that Rome used her power so ill, and that her own character and that of her Popes were so evil, that she ha d become bot n politically and spiri- tually the centre ot widcMflfes^ ^d rottenness in Europe ~ and espec ially in jTt alv.) And this was no new thing. Men had been complain- ing of it for generations. The greatest poets of Italy Dante oa the ^^^ ^oi^g before immortalized the guilt of Popes. Rome. Two centuries before, Dante had de- scribed the Popes of his day as men whose avarice O'ercasts the world with mouming, under foot Treading the good, and raising bad men up. Of Shepherds like to you, the Evangelist Was ware, when her who sits upon the waves With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld i CH. m. Italy. 23 And soon after Dante, Petrarch had described petrarch <» Rome thus :— ^*«»* Once Rome I now false and guilty Babylon I Hive of deceits 1 Terrible prison. Where the good doth die, the bad is fed and fattened 1 Hell of the living 1 .... Sad world that dost endure it i Cast her out 1 And in the days of these great poets, Reformers and Councils too, had tried to reform Rome, but without avail A few more generations had passed and Rome was now not only unreformed but in respect to morals worse than ever. How much worse we know not only from the censures of her poets, but from the statements of her contemporary historians. The PopebL. of Rome had for long not only wielded both political and spiritual power, ^t us^d them to enrich their own famihes ; and as a Popes b*d rule they had recently be en notoriously ba d "**"• Alexander VI. was the reigning Pope, and the worst Rome ever had. His wicked reign lasted from 1492 to 1 503. His great aim was to bring Rome, and if he Alexander could, all Italy, into the hands of his still "2;^^ more wicked son Caesar Borgia. The latter ^^«**- caused his own brother to be stabbed and thrown into the Tiber. He had his brother-in-law assassinated on his palace-steps. He stabbed one of his father's favourites who had taken shelter under the pontifical robes, so that the blood spirted into the Pope's face. Rich men were poisoned to get their wealth. Their The reign of these Borgias was a reign of crime*- terror in Rome. At last, in 1503, the Pope fell, it is said, into his own trap, and died of the poison he had prepared for another. Another great Italian historian of the time, Guic^ 24 State of Christendom, PT. L ciardini, records that the body of the Pope, black and loathsome, was exposed to public view in St Peter's. And he goes on to say : — * All Rome flocked to that sight, and could not suC- ticiently satiate their eyes with gazing on the remains of the extinct serpent, who by his immoderate ambition, pestiferous perfidy, monstrous lust, and every sort of horrible cruelty and unexampled avarice — selling without distinction property sacred and profane — had compassed the destruction of so many by poison, and was now become its victim ! ' Machiavelli was right then, that thg ^xaff yple of Rome in Italy was ^n evj l pr^^^afr it made the Italians hate t^e Church, ahd drove thinking jn en. while Enect of xh/t _ . _ ^^ ^^""^T^^""^ , , — ,, . Pope's they remained superstitious, to doubt Chns - wickedness. jj agity, and to welcome even Pagan religions , because tfiey seemed so much purer than that which Rome offered them, we shall see by-and-by. This is what he meant when he spoke of the Italians becoming ' heathenish ' — ^it was exactly the fact And now as to his other statement, that Rome was the cause of the divisions, and therefore of the ruin of Italy; this also, the facts of the recent history of Italy will make clear. The map shows how Italy was in the main divided — Venice, Milan, „ . J. . and Florence Alain divi- . , noni of to the north ; '^y- Naples to the south ; the States of the Church between. (i) The States of the Church, Over these the Popes had a shadowy kind of rule, but they were made up CH. lU. Italy, 25 of petty lordships and cities, claiming independence^ and even Rome was ruled by its Barons p^p^ rather than by the Popes ; or to speak more States, correctly the Barons and the Pope were always quarrelling which of the two should rule. The Pope lived in his strong castle of St. Angelo, close by the city. (2) Venice was a commercial city, 1,000 years old, ruled by its nobles and possessing territory like ancient Rome, ruled for the benefit of its citizens . rather than its subjects. (3) Florence was also a commercial republic, but not governed by its nobles. It was a democratic republic, but one family of citizens — the Medici — had «,^^ grown by trade richer than the rest, and usurped almost despotic power. It also possessed con- siderable territory. (4) Milan was a State to which there were many rival claims. The King of France, as Duke of Orleans, claimed It by inheritance from the Dukes of Milan. The King of Naples (and Spain through him) also had a claim, and the Emperor of Germany claimed it as having reverted to the Empire. Meanwhile the Sfarsa family had possession. (5) Naples was also a State to which there were rival claims. Its nobles had usurped almost uncontrolled power. The right to feudal sovereignty over it was dis- puted between the Counts of Anjou (France) and the King of Arragon (Spain). The latter ^ had long had possession, and it had descended to a bas- tard branch of that house. That the Popes were continually fomenting quarrels between these Italian States and bringing 'barbarian' princes to fight their battles on Italian soil, a few facts will show. Alexander VI. and Caesar Borgia first stirred up Venict and Milan again «5t Naples, Then the allies invited 26 State of Christendom, ft. i. Charles VIII. of France^ who in 1494 crossed the Alps, overturned the Medici at Florence, and entered Naples in 1495. Then in 1495 the Pope^ Venice^ and Milan joined with Ferdinand of Spain in turning the French out of Naples again. In 1500 Louis XII. of France took Milan, and then he and Ferdinand of Spain jointly invaded Naples, But they quarrelled, and Spain^ under Gonsalvo de tics the ruin Cordova, defeated the French^ and so Ferdi- of Italy. nand became King of Naples, and (having Sardinia and Sicily before) of the two Sicilies in 1505. In 1503 Julius II. became Pope, and devoted his ten years' reign to constant war. In 1509 he, France, Spain, and Germany formed the League of Cambray against Venice, But the robbers quarrelled on the eve of victory, and so Venice was not ruined. In 151 1 Louis XII. of France tried to get Henry VIII. of England to join him in deposing Julius II. But Julius succeeded in getting England and Spain and Germany to join his ' Holy League * against France, After driving Louis XII. of France out of Italy, Julius II. died iu 1513, and was succeeded by Leo X {b) Germany. Next to Italy, Germany was furthest of all modem nations from having attained national unity. The Ger- Had not yet man, or, as it called itself, ' the Holy Roman ' SISJ Empire, was a power which belonged to the unity. old order of things. Like the Pope of Rome, the Emperor considered himself as the head of Christen- dom. He called himself ' Caesar,' and, as successor to the Roman Empire, which the Germans had conquered, claimed a vague sovereignty over other lands besides his kingship in Germany. As the Pope of Rome was the CH. lU. Germany, 27 spiritual head, so the Emperor considered himself the * temporal head of all Christian people.' Switzerland had indeed severed herself from the Ger- man Empire. England, Spain, and France had never properly belonged to it. But the French king had never- theless sometimes sworn fealty to the Empire ; and even Henry VIII. of England, when it suited his purpose {t,e, when he wanted to be Emperor !) took care to point out to the Electors that, while his rival, Francis I. of France, was a foreigner, in electing an Eng- His claim to lish Emperor, they would not be departing ^jSJewry from the German tongue. On other occa- shadowy, sions he took care to insist that England, however Saxon in her speech, had never been subject to the Empire. So the claim to universal sovereignty was very shadowy indeed. When a vacancy occurred, the new Emperor was elected, under the * Golden Bull 'of 1356, by How seven Prince elected- Electors, viz. : [On the Rhine]. The three Arch- bishops of Mayenuy Treves^ and Cologne^ and the Count Palatine of the Rhine. [On the Elbe]. The King of Bohemia^ the Elector of Saxony^ the Margrave of Brandenburg, The ceremony of coronation showed the peculiar nature of the Empire. The Emperor when elected was first crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. He swore to maintain the Catholic faith and the rights of the kingdom and Empire. He swore also subjection to the Roman Pontiflf and the holy Roman Church. Next the people were TME SEVEH PRIMCC ELECTORB 28 Staie of Christendon^ pt. i. formally asked first in Latin and then in German whethei they were willing to be subject to him as their prince and ruler. After their shout ' So be it/ he was anointed king with consecrated oil in the presence of the electors and people, and then by the three archbishops robed in the robes, girt with the sword, crowned with the crown, and lastly placed on the ancient stone throne of Charlemagne. This was his coronation as German and Roman king. Strictly speaking he was not fully entitled to be called Emperor till after a further ceremony of coronation by the Pope. The Emperor had little real power in Germany ; and, indeed, as time went on he seemed to have less and less. Once large domains had belonged to the Emperor : some in Italy, some on the Rhine. But former emperors had lost the Italian estates or ceded them to Italian periai' nobles and cities during struggles with the domains. Popes ; while those on the Rhine had been handed over to the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, who were Electors, to secure votes and political support For some generations there had been no im- perial domains at all ; not an inch of territory in Germany or Italy came to the Emperor with his imperial crown. The Empire was therefore reduced to a mere feudal head- ship. Nor had the Emperor, as feudal head, much power in Gen nanv. He found it very hard to e^et troops or mon ey from the firman ppnple.. Maximilian^ the imperial reigning Emperor, was notoriously poor, and P°^*^ declared that the Pope drew a hundred times, larger revenue out of Germany than he did. He was a powerful sovereign in Europe because he was head of the house of Hapsburg, and was rising into great power ia Europe by his alliances. CH. III. Germany, 29 Already the heir of Austria, Maximilian had married Mary of Burgundy and the Netherlands. His son Philip thus was heir-apparent to those provinces The as well as Austria. Philip married Joanna, MaSSuan daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain ; of the and so their son Charlesbe came h e ir to Hmisc*of Spain also. Thus was ^ h^lJou s e^lTraps burg ^ Hapsburg pushing itself into poW g - a n d i nfl uence. The Genfi an Km pire was the crowning symbol of their power rathei^ TKan ^h<* f<>asnrt of it. In the case of Mavimilian^ if wag the power _of Austria tha t made the German T^mp^^rnr great By-and-by, as we shall see when Charles V. of Austria, Spain, and the Nether- ** lands rises to the Empire and becomes the most powerful prince in Europe, it is by Spain, not Germany, that he wields his still greater influence. The power of the Emperor was far less in Germany than in his own domains, for in Germany his power was checked by the Diet or feudal parliament of ^ ^. r^ .^i ^. r y y The DlCtS. the Empire. The Diet was a feudal, not a re- presentative parliament; i.e, none but the Emperor's feudal vassals had a claim to attend and vote in it. The diet met and voted in three separate colleges : 1. The Electors (except the King of Bohemia, who had no voice except in the election of an Emperor). 2. The Princes, lay and ecclesiastical 3. The Free Imperial Cities (/>. those cities which held direct of the Emperor). The Elector^ and Princes had most power. Only what was agreed upon by them was last of all submitted to the College of Cities. To secure the carrying out of the decrees of the Diets, there had also ^° p?*'*=' , . ' to enforce recently been some attempts at an organiza- iheir tion of the Empire. It was divided in circles "**"**'• JO State of Christendom. ft. t for the maintenance of order; but this, though plausilde on paper, had little effect in reality, because the Diets had no real power to enforce their decrees. Germany was, in fact, still under the feudal system — ^ , ^ . still divided up into petty lordships — ^more so The feudal . . '^ ^^ ' '^ ^ . , system sdn than perhaps any other country; certainly prevailed. more SO than England, Spain, or France. One reason for this was, as we have seen, that the r>m^an Ir^iy nf inh eritance divided the W ^ffhfp^ T^HgAAn Subdivisioa the s ons of a feudal lord on his death i so b'^^Sw^oi?* ^ere was constant subdivision, and in con- inheritance, sequence an ever-increasing host of petty sovereignties. The mass of the feudal lords were petty and poor, and yet proud and independent, resisting any attempts Constant of the powers above them, whether Emperor, petty feuds, q^ Dicts, or Electors, to control them. They claimed the right of waging war ; and, by their petty feuds, the public peace was ^ways being broken. They too often lived a wild life in times of peace {i,e, when not at feud with some neighbouring lord), devoted to the chase, trampling over their tenants' crops, scouring the woods with their retainers and their dogs. In times of war and feuds, with helmets, breastplates, and cross-bows they lay in ambush in the forests watching an enemy, or fell upon a train of merchants on the roads from some town or city with which they had a quarreL They became as wild and lawless as the wolves. Gdtz von Berlichingen (popularly known as * G6tz with the Iron Hand 0, and Franz von Sickingen were types of this wild knighthood. They were champions of the ™ of fist-law (faust-recht). They called it private knights. ,^^^^^ ^^^ jj ^^ Ql^gjj plunder and pillage by which they lived. Gotz was indeed more like the head of a band of robbert than anything else. He one day ciL iir. Germany, 3' saw a pack of wolves fall upon a flock of sheep. ' Good luck, dear comrades/ said Gdtz ; ' good luck to us all and everywhere ! ' These lawless knights were indeed like wolves, and, just as much as the wild animals they hunted, belonged to the old order of things, which must go out to make way for advancing civilisation. The free towns of Germany were her real strength. The1:itizens were thriftv, earned much bv their com - merre^ spe nt little^ and g^ vmA "^"^^^ Each ^he towns city was a Uttle free state (for they had mostly of Gennany. thrown off their feudal lords;, self-governed, like a little republic, fortified, well stored with money in its treasury, a year's provisions and firing often stored up against a siege. The little towns were of course dependent in part on the peasantry round, buying their com, and in return supplying them with manufactured goods. But the bigger towns lived by a wider conunerce, and held their heads above the peasantry. Above all, they hated the feudal lords, whose feuds and petty wars and lawless deeds put their conmierce in peril Two hun- Their dred years ago, sixty towns on the Rhine had i^J^ ***' leagued themselves together to protect their defence, conunerce. After that had come the league^ of the Hanse Towns, chiefly in the North of Germany, but including Cologne and twenty-nine adjacent towns, and aiming at defending commerce from robberies by land as well as piracy by sea. They had to form these leagues because Germany was divided and without a real head — not yet a nation — though all that was good and great in it was ^^^ ^^^ sighing for more national life, for a central central government with power enough to main- ^Tnuinthe tain the public peace, but hitherto sighing in P^^iicp**** * See the Map of Commeroe. Jt SiaU of CkrisUmJffWL. ft. i. van. tkE&diai^ m ker EBperar kctle moie kdp than Italy iwiiiil ttt her Pope. No doss IK GeraEiBy kid ■iftirrt more from want of a General power don tke pcBantiT. Tbcy still were io T^QBK. fendal serfffaasL WkOe in other countries, where there was a wcO-cstabfishcd centra] gQPventxBCBti the lot of the peasantry had im- promcd and «rfrtnm almost been got rid o^ hoe m GennaoT their lot had grvwn harder asMi harder ior waat of k. The Germui |r»o*^ or ^iKoMr/ was sdll a senrile ^;^^ In manT ways he was no donbt better off than a Ubocurer far wa^es. His honse was no mere laboorer's coCta^>e— It was a Htile ium. He had aliont him his land and ^ fire stodk^ hss ham and his stack. Under the sane roof with his £uKhr his cows aad p^gsl^ wpon their straw and he apon his bedL On ^he raised cooling hearth Aewood cmckkd noder Aesrcat non pot hmg on its t*«hi Germany. ?3 in his ^ro^^ for teedom. But in GennaDy> •fcere there was na Uctf to step in, and where services coBthnied, tfaescsHncityaf labonrwas only likely to maiift the lords insist all die more upon thor pG[f[]Kxnanc& So the lords had encroached more arid niore on the peasant^ i^^ evicted more and more labour &am them^ in- creased their biuxtens, robbed thexn more and more of didr common ri^its over the pa^strmp^^ the wild game, *nd the fish in the rivers, grown more and more insoleit^ ^ the peasants in some places had ^^mk abnost into slavery. It was galling to them to have to work for thor *Ofds in fine weadier, and to have to ^eal in tiieir own little crops on rainy days. Small a thing as it might be, pcriiaps it was still more galling to receive orders on *M*days to turn out and gather wild strawberries for the folk at the Castie Hard, too, it seemed to them when, on the deadi of a peasant, the lord's agent came and '^•rtcd off firora die widow*^ home the heriot ^ 'best ^ttd,' accontintt to aiurtent ru«;tom- perhaps the horse Bm ftowwer iMtf a ^um tii^m^ m\^%s\ ^^^^ '^' *^^^ J» BOflKaedif- ?tP*^j]f things when, by the m arriag^e of FerdigSnd'o f'Arragon to Isabella of Cas til»-(tn 1481), all Spaing ^x^pi Navarre and Granada,^ was united ui^er one monarchy, and from this F^dinand*' time th fe^tendenry was for t^ ^ »l.r/.r^^ t^J^- ^^ Isabella. i>nH mnr^ ^hff^llUf It waS OUe ^^^^ pbjects of Ferdinand and Isabella and mow to ex tend the power of the m onarchy. * ^^^ ' — Spain had found, as tne uermans had found, that without some central power it was hard to keep the peace, to protect trade and commerce, and to put down robbery and crime. T>i<* ^jtii>g v^^ iinifi>/ ^ jn a * Ho ly Brotherh ood > fnr ^ his purpose, and Ferdinand sided wit h em in this object B ut what more than anything else ounteracted the feudal tendency to separate into little ^ )etty states, and to strengthen Uie national feeling and nake it rally round the common centre of the conquest of hrone, was the war long waged by Ferdi - ^^^^^^^i^^^ tand, and at len^ successful, against the last strong - romf* ipnre a of the first ^ \ 'Eold of the Moors in Granada. In 1492 Granada was 36 State of Christendom, ft. l taken, the 700 years' struggle ended, and the Moors were driven for ever out of Spain. Thus was all Spain (except the little state of Navarre, under shelter of the Pyrenees) united in one nation. The modem kingdom of Spain, thus formed, rose up at once to be one of the first powers of Europe. We have already seen how Charles VIII. of France had been invited by the Pope and his allies to attack Ferdinand'! Naples. As a bribe to keep Ferdinand (who policy to had a rival claim on Naples) quiet while he Spam. went on this raid on Naples, he had ceded to Ferdinand the little state of Perpignan^ on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. Ferdinand was intent on the com- pletion of the kingdom of Spain, and took the bribe. We shall soon find him (in 1512) obtaining possession of Navarre. In the meantime the result of the Italian wars was that he got hold of Naples ; and having the islands of Sardinia and Sicily already, he became King of the < Two Sicilies,' as well as of Spain. Another fact added to the pp^refoT^Spain. It was under Spanish auspices that^^ Cgmmbus^ scovered Ame- rica. T his not onl y threw the p-ol d ot Uie i niTi*^^ nf y^m into the treasuries ot Spain; it added an- "™ other great laurel to her fame. It was Spain that had driven the Moors out of Western Europe ; it was Spain that enlarged Christendom by the discovery of the New World. „ . The foreign policy of princes in those Foreign po* - I'^a, licy. Mar- days was very much mfluenced by the mar- ™«*^ riages they planned and effected for their children. Ferdinand's first aim was to get all the Span ish-Pen- insula under the power of the Spanish Crown. So he married his eldest daughter to the King of Portugal, in hopes of some day uniting the two Crowns. This came CH. m. Spain. 37 to pass in the person of Philip II., the husband of the English Queen Mary. His next policy was to ally himself with such foreign powers as would best help him to secure his ends. There were two reasons why he did not ally himself with France. France was his rival in Italy. He had fought with France for Naples, and meant to keep it. He also wanted Navarre to complete the Spanish kingdom. A French prince claimed it also. The aim of Spanish foreign policy was, therefore, to work against France. By the marriage of his daughter Catherine to the King of England, and Joanna to tlie heir of the rising House of Hapsburg, who held the Netherlands, and whose head, Maximilian I., was Emperor, he connected himself with the two powers who, like himself, were jealous of France — England^ because part of France had so long been claimed as belonging to the English Crown — the House of Hapsburg^ because France had got hold of part of Burgundy (which formerly belonged to the same Burgundian inheritance as the Netherlands). And on the whole, though his schemes did not prosper in his lifetime, they did succeed in „ , f o . 1 f . Success of making Spam the first power m Europe these alU- during the next reign. ■°*^*^ When Queen Isabella died, Joanna became Queen ol Castile. She, however, was insane, and her husband Philip dying soon after, Ferdinand held the reins of Castile in her name as Regent On his death, in 15 16, Castile and Arragon were again united, under Charles V., and Spain became greater than ever. TTie domestic policy of Ferdinand and Isabella had also for its object the consolidation of Spain Domestic under their throne. Their great minister was p°^^- C ardinal Ximenes, whose policy was to str^ i^TifthrTT tht central power of t he Crown bv engraging a)l S pain XSlA 38 State of Christendom. Pt. L Is- ^m:: B S Jl.K.'i! ^ Ms? ^ § it'll- I 1 5 ■5 3 « 8-3 <* o "^ 2 2.-S M m. Spain. 39 natu mal war against the Moors, and by streD p^^yTli"ff t>ig _towns (or loyal element) at the exy ^nfie c^i ihpt fcnHal nobles (the disloyal element in Spain as elsewhere^ The subjugation of the nobles to the Crown was subjugation in great measure effected, and the Crown be- of the nobles, came more and more absolute. Not content with driying out of Spain the last rem- nant of the Mohammedan Moors, the Catholic The inquisi- zeal of the king and queen and Ximenes turned '*°°- itself against the Jews and heretics. They founded the ^Inquisition ' in Spain, which in a generation Banishment burned thousands of heretics. They expelled, °^ ^^ J*^*- it is said, more than 100,000 Jews from their Spanish homes. These first took refuge in Portugal, and soon after, driven from thence, were scattered over Europe. But notwithstanding thi ^ z^al for \\\f, Tathn"^ f'>\^\s by wnich Feramand and Isabella earned the title of * tfu Catholic,^ t here was no no tio n in the minds of Ximenes^ or his roy ^l r^flgtPi^ai^^ misT resS to sacnfire Sp f^jp »r> T?<^Tn<> They were as zealous in refomiing the morals of the clergy and monks as in rooting out heresy. They demanded from the Pope bulls enabling them to visit and reform the monasteries. They rlainr»>H fh<* right in - ^ . / i ^, . , . , Independent many cases of appointing their own bishop s, policy to- ^TGid when the scandals of Alexander Vt.'s ^»'^d*Ro°»«- wicked reign came to their knowledge, Jtfee^jhrgtcafid-to combine with other sovereigns in his * ^orrectionJ ^ One other thing we must notice. The discoveries of Columbus, followed up by the conquest of Mexico and Peru, gave to Spain suddenly a colonial em- coUniai po- pire to govern. Her colonies in the New ^^• World were in one sense the gem in her Crown. Her dreams of wealth in gold and silver were more than realized. To have extended Christendom into a new world seemed in itself a worthy exploit to the Catholic zeal of 40 State of Christendom, PT. t. Queen Isabella. Her royal anxiety to convert the heathen inhabitants of the new-found lands to the Catholic faith was no doubt as genuine as her anxiety to root heresy out of Spain. She sent out Catholic missionaries, but the selfishness oi her Spanish colonists introduced slavery instead of Chris- tianity. In these first Spanish colonies was be- ^'*^* gun that cruel policy by which the native races were exterminated — ^worked to death — and then African negroes introduced to supply their place. The introduction of slavery, and its necessary feeder— the slave trade — ^was a blot upon the colonial policy, not only of Spain but of Christendom. It was essentially contrary to the genius of modem civilization, and we know how great a struggle has been needful in our own times to prevent its ruining the greatest of the colonies of the New World. {d) France, Machiavelli says, 'The kings of France are at this time more rich and powerful than ever.' So they were. The dynasty of the Capets^ which began before How all the time of the ^^^ Nonnan conquest one nation, of England and lasted down to the ^ Louis CapeV (Louis XVI.) who was put to death during the French Revolution, had now ruled France for about fi\t hundred years. But the France ruled by the first Capet was only the portion marked dark on the map. It was as though the King of England had ruled only CH. m. France, 41 Yorkshire. The rest of France was divided among the great Barons. These Baronies, or ' Duchies* had gradually been ab- sorbed into the kingdom. The dates when they thus fell in are marked on the map. Now if we look at France at the France beginning of ^^t:f^, J* t**JfttVF^'*" FRAKCE andy by aimi '^g tP ^^^^^ the first, made herself the great rival of Spa in. What were the secrets of her growing power ? As we have seen, Machiavelli said that Italy was weaker than either S^in or France, because the latter were each of them united under one Crown, We have now to mark some of the reasons why the Duchies of France had become united under the Crown. / (l) Tho Crt^ynx wac nnf fjf^rtivft. a«; in (^r- f many, but hereditary in the royal family. \ (2) The rule of inheritanct in France was ) not division among all the sons, but descent N to the eldest son only. I (3) The fact that the most powerful barons / were of the royal blood not only made them I loyal to the throne, but sometimes united their N^uchies to the Crown under one heir; e^. This union of all France the result of- Crown here- ditary ; primo- geniture ; Inter- marriage with the ro3ral familj 42 State of Christendom. ft. i. kings of France, as heirs of the Duchies of Anjou and Orleans, claimed both those Duchies and also their rights to Naples and Milan. i(4) The towns, as in Spain and elsewhere, had favoured the growth of the central power as the best means of freeing themselves from their old e towns fgmjgJ lords. Most of them had long ago obtained charters of freedom, and now held only of the Crown. The final struggle of the Crown with the great feudal Barons had been concluded just before the era com- Final menced. It had been a hard struggle between ^?Crown ^^"^^ ^^- ^^^ ^^® ^^^^ ^^ Burgundy. The with Duchy was merged, and from that time the "'^^ ^' unity of France was settled. She had be- come powerful enough to hold her own against both internal and foreign foes. The kings of England had once claimed a great part _ ,. , of France, but there was henceforth no real English , /. , . . . , , . . rm conquests chance of their gettmg it back again. They at an end. could no longer find allies on French soil against France. It is true that we shall find Henry VIII. still dream- ing sometimes of reversing the decision of the ' hundred years' war' which had ended in the withdrawal of Eng- land from all France except the town of Calais ; and we shall find Spain and England combining during the era more than once to crush France. But in reality the object of these wars we shall find to be not so much the dismemberment of France as opposition to the aggressive policy of Louis XII. and Francis I., and their invasions of Italy. The hundred years' war with England had also tended to consolidate the French nation. It was a Ctt. til. France, 43 wars had help«d to unite the oation, and increase the power of the Crown: nati onal and even popular struggle to turn out a foreip i tlUi. Tt necessitated the levying of national The English armies and the payment of national taxes. It did for France, to some extent, what the wars with the Moors did for Spain : it strengthened the central power of the Crown . and gave it a recognised place as natural liead and leader of the nation, in peace as well as >in war. \ But the misfortune of France was that in outwardly becoming a great nation by uniting all the Duchies under the Crown, and so enlarging the size of but there France on the map, sad mistakes were made, of^Sisunion which prevented her growth in internal unity ^ within, which sowed the seeds of bitter feeling between classes, and ended in producing her Great Revolution. /^ We cannot note too carefully these fatal mistakes. / (i) The king got the power of levying taxes — the / ^taille^ — without the consent of the people. / The ' Estates General,' or French Parliament, / which had hitherto had a voice in matters of / taxation, hereafter had none ; the Crown be- / came absolute. L (2) The king, successful in his war against A England, henceforth out of these taxes kept a large standing army. These things, said Philip de Commines^ the con- temporary French historian of Louis XL, 'gave a v/ound to his kingdom which will not soon be closed.' He was right, for these two things kept classes apart id broke up the internal unity of France. To see how bey did this, let us look at each class separately. The nobility or noblesse of France were made into a permanently separate caste. In old times they paid no taille, because they gave their military ser\nces to the Rovai taxes without coA' sent of the people. Roy;a standing army. 44 State of Christendom, pt. i. king in his wars. Now there was a standing army they were less and less needed as soldiers, yet their freedom Th^noMesie from taxation remained. They were a privi- aprivUegcd leeed class, and intermarried with one an- untaxed o » - , caste other. Their estates went down to their eldest sons, but the younger sons, too, belonged to the noblesse. So they became a very numerous class, poor, but proud of their blood and freedom from taxes. The peasantry^ on the other hand, were the bur- Thc peasan- ^ened class. In some respects they were much try not serfs, better off than the German peasantry. Very early in their history serfdom had practically ceased in the north of France, especially in Normandy ; while in most parts their services in labour had been long ago changed into fixed rents, paid most often in com, wine, or fruits. But their young crops still suffered from but paying the lord's game. They still had tolls and rents fees and dues to pay, and forced labour to give on the roads. They still looked up to the feudal lord as to a master, and the lord down upon them as bom for service. There was an impassable barrier of blood between the two classes. The Church added her claims — ^her tithes, as in other countries, and the endless fees and money payments, which made her so obnoxious. Bishops and abbots, in France as in Germany, had large estates as well as tithes, and so were landlords and princes as well as priests, drawing, Machiavelli says, two-fifths of the annual revenues of the kingdom into their ecclesiastical coffers. Lastly came the extra burden of the taille, growing with the military needs of kings who, having an d taiu army, and not content with tuming out the English and conquering refractory barons, must needs lay claim to Milan and Naples, and invade Italy. CH. ni. France, 45 Here is a picture drawn by the peasants themselves of their hard lot, as they complained to the States General on the accession of Charles VII L, and laid their grie- vances before the new monarch, hoping for a remedy which never came. * During the past thirty-four years troops have been 'ever passing through France and living on the poor * people. When the poor man has managed Their grie- * by the sale of the coat on his back, after vance*. * hard toil, to pay his taille, and hopes he may live out * the year on the little he has left, then come fresh troops * to his cottage, eating him up. In Normandy multi- * tudes have died of hunger. From want of beasts men ' and women have to yoke themselves to the carts, and ' others, fearing that if seen in the daytime they will be ' seized for not having paid their taille, are compelled to 'work at night The king should have pity on his poor ' people, and relieve them from the said tailles and charges.' Alas ! Charles VIII., instead of listening to their com- ' plaints, took to invading Italy ! increasing their taille and spilling more of their blood. When to all this we add the consciousness that while y they, the much-enduring peasantry, were bearing these / increasing burthens, the noblesse were free from them, y can we wonder if the peasantry should learn to hate as ^^ well as envy the nobles ? ^ The middle class in order to escape the incidents of The rural taxation more and more left the rural districts to live in the towns. Not sharing the blood or ^he middie the freedom from taille of the nobles, there cUss ieav« was no mixing or intermarrying with them, for the*°"^ They were of different castes. Neither did ^^"*- the men of the towns sympathize with the peasantry. They had their taille to pay like the peasantry, but under their charters they enjoyed privileges which the peasant 46 State of Christendom, pt. i. did not. They were merchants rather than manufacturers. Some linen manufactures were carried on in Brittany and Normandy, but mostly France was supplied with goods from the looms of Flanders in exchange for com and wine. The towns were the markets in which the products of the peasant were exchanged, and the townsmen thus had the chance of throwing a part of their burdens on their rural customers in the shape of tolls and dues. While thus the noblesse grew prouder and poorer, and the peasantry were more and more burdened, the middle classes in the ^ towns grew richer and more and more powerfiiL Hence the gulf between different classes in France was ever widening. The Crown was absolute and uncon- I trolled by any parliament, the noblesse a privileged caste, the middle class settling in the towns, while the poor peasantry were left to bear their burdens alone in the Separation country. Francc had grown a big imited of classes th« country on the map, but looking within the mam vice in . ' r , . , » i t • % 't French nation, a State of thmgs had begun which, if P**^*^- unreformed, was sure in the end to produce revolution, though it might not come yet. In the meantime the first false steps of the absolute kings of France were those attempts at aggrandizement Love of which led them to invade Italy and prove their tib^cfJS strength in a long rivalship with Spain. .JC^^ in her poUcy. gratify a roval lust for empire and militarv glorv thqy were ready to sacrifice the welfare of th^ French {e) England. England had politically advanced further on the path of modem civilisation than any other country. The English The English people had long ago become JJ^ a compact nation, with a strong central formed. government, and with one law for all classes within it. CH. tn, England. 47 England had passed under the feudal system, and, like other countries, had her separate feudal elements, need- ing to be blended into one compact whole. But happily in England this work had in good measure been done. Her feudal nobles, especially since the wars of the Roses, had been thorou^fhly subdued under the central power. Early in her history the petty feudal ^1,^ nobility lords had sunk into conmioners. Unlike the «»o' * ca«^ noblesse of France, the nobility of England was not a separate caste. The younger sons of nobles became commoners, while their title to nobility, as well as their estates, went to the eldest sons only. Fn[yhnTi pnygnnnnf i n nwmtrnm an^ pow e rful midd le fined to th ** tpwng T.anHnum<>fc on/I y^/^in^ti classes. m the country bft1f>ng f>f» »^ i»j ^c iir#>n qc f>iA riti'Tf>p«| j^nH mercnan^ Sr And whilst all classes, including the nobility, had been subjected to the central government, they had none of them been crushed and humbled. The ,p. ^- Crown had not become absolute, as in France, also subject It, too, was subject to the laws of the land. ^ '^ ^^^ The central power, or government, consisted of— (i) The King, (2) the House of Lords, in which the nobility had seats ; and (3) the House of Commons, where the representatives of the free landholders, and of the free citizens or burgesses, sat side by side. The govern. No law could be passed without the con- StStiSiS"" currence of the Crown and both Houses of monarchy. Parliament And the laws so passed were binding alike on king, nobility, and commoners, ue,j on the whole na- tion. Nor could the Crown levy taxes without the consent of Parliament The government of England was a con- stitutional monarchy, and had long been so. There was, however, still one class of people who were not altogether blended into the nation — the ecclesiastics 48 State of Christendom, pt. i. or clergy. Bishops and abbots, because they were great landholders and peers of the realm, had seats in the The eccie- House of Lords, just as in Germany, there siastics. ^g^g jjqj^ ecclesiastical and lay princes I and Electors. In this sense they were Englishmen. But the clergy in the main owed allegiance to Rome, Ecclesiastics and in spite of the Constitutions of Clarendon, gethM^En^- ^^^® ^^^ ruled by ecclesiastical law and ec- Bshmen. clcsiastical courts, and resented civil inter- ference. So they were subjects of the great Roman ecclesiastical empire rather than of England. Their al- legiance was at least divided between the Pope and the king, and sometimes they were foreigners. The The Pope Popeat the same time drewlar p;** rAVAi^nAg^nm vcnu^^from England as well as the kin g. The ecclesiastical England. power was more under control, and had been for long more restrained by law in England than in most countries ; but still the fact was that Rome had ecclesiastical sway over England. And in England, as elsewhere, the clergy and monks had got a large part of the land into their hands — and this was in addition to the tithes from the whole. The fact that there was one law of the land made by King and Parliament, and ruling all classes in the realm (except the clergy), had, more than anything 5*ha?^ else, helped the peasantry to rise out of free from servitude. There was no peasantry in Europe (except the Swiss) which had already so com- pletely got out of it as the English. It early became the law of the land in England that the services of the peasant could noi be increased by the lord. What they had been by long custom they must not exceed. Then, by the influence of conunerce, money payments were early substituted for labour services. So that people became used to money rents for land and CH. III. England, 49 money wages for labour. The population of England had increased very rapidly up to the fourteenth century. It was then nearly twice what it was afterwards, because the Black Death in 1349 had swept off half of it in a few months. This of course made labour scarce. In spite of all that the lords could do, and in spite even of Acts of Parliament passed to prevent it, there was a great rise in wages. Under the feudal law the peasant tenants might not leave their land. But now more and more they went to the towns, where they could earn higher wages than by tilling the land. There was of course a struggle to prevent it, but, aided by the towns, the process went on. The feudal lords tried to enforce the old services, which had become so much ijiore valuable since the Black Death. The more they did so, the more their tenants deserted the land and went to the towns. The peasantry kept up a kind of strike, which came to a climax in the rebellion under Wat Tyler in 1381. They were so far successful that fixed money payments became general instead of services, and by the time of Henry VII. ser- vitude or villenage was practically at an end in England. Quite a new state of things had grown up. Owing to the growth of the woollen manufactures, and the demand for wool, sheep-farming had very much increased. The iwesent Instead of a lot of little peasants' holdings, JgS'^^af °^ the large farms of the wealthy sheep-owners santry. often covered the country side. The masses of the people in England were more and more becoming a free people working for wages, while such tenants as remained on the land paid fixed money rents instead services, and instead of being tied to the land were ejected from their holdings if they could not pay their rents. No doubt the masses of the people in England had their hardships to endure. They had suffered during the civi' 50 State of Christendom, pt. i. wars of the Roses from anarchy and lawlessness and the ravages of armies. Soldiers disbanded after foreign wars disturbed the country. Small tenants found it hard to compete with larger ones, and on faitoe to pay their rents lost their farms very often. The number of ejections from the land added of course to the idle vagrant popu- lation. Robbery was thereby increased, and as both Freedom did thieves and vagabonds were hung, some- not neces- times twenty might be seen hanging from a Sem Stter single gibbet. All this showed that there were ®^- evils at work — many things needing reform —but the English peasantry had earned by their past They had no Struggles this great advantage : instead of share in the being servile tenants of feudal lords, they but there * were free subjects, protected by the law of t^rev^^ the land, though freedom did not necessarily their getting make them better off, but often the contrary. They had indeed as yet no share in making the laws, but there was nothing in their blood or in the law of England to prevent their rising by industry and thrift into owners of land, and as such claiming a voice in the government of their country. Such was England when, after the wars of the Roses, Henry VII. conquered at the Battle of Bosworth, and ascended the throne in 1485. Henry VII. was bom an orphan, a few months after the death of his father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Rich- niond. He was an exile in Brittany while *"^ * the civil wars were raging in England. He was twenty-six when the young princes were murdered, and Richard III. usurped the throne. At once, under the advice of Morton, Bishop of Ely, an attempt was AW ish made to dethrone in his favour the tyrant andlandST' Richard III. He was only twenty-eight b Wales. when, aflcr landing at Milford Haven, and CH. in. England, 5 1 winning at the Battle of Bosworth, he was proclaimed king. His family (the Tudors) were Welsh, and so he had wisely landed in Wales. Belonging himself through his mother to the Lancastrian house, to conciliate the Yorkists, he took an oath to marry, and afterwards mar- ried Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV., thereby in a way uniting the blood of the two rival The throne factions. He was received with acclamations p«<»no"s- in London, and ascended a precarious throne. It is well to note how precarious it was. The four previous kings had all been violently dethroned — Henry VI. imprisoned and murdered, Edward IV. deposed and exiled for a while, Edward V. murdered, Richard III. slain in battle. Henry VI I. himself was a usurper, and, though he was king by Act of Parliament, there were other other claimants to the throne. Two of them, claimants, generally thought to be impostors, invaded England, and tried to seize upon his throne. The first of these, Lambert Simnel, called Lambert himself Edward Earl of Warwick, and was SimneL supported by the Yorkist nobility, but defeated at the battle of Stoke in 1487. The other, Perkin Warbeck^ professed to be the Duke of York, who with his brother, Edward V., was supposed to have been murdered by Richard perkin War- III. He was supported by Edward IV.'s b«ck. sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, by the Kings of France and Scotland, who were continually plotting against Henry VII., and every now and then, when it suited his purpose, by Ferdinand of Spain. Perkin Warbeck was taken prisoner in 1497, and beheaded in 1499. Henry VII.'s foreign policy was peace and .^ alliance with Spain. We have seen that the forelS foreign policy of Spain was alliance with Eng- p****^' land against France. Henry VII. wanted peace. This 52 State of Christendom, rr. i. ftrmly on his precarious throne. To get peac ^ ^ff ^^^^ to ffiseli" with Spain. While both were infants the Prince o f WaTes was betrothed to the l^rincess of Spain, Cathe- fine oi Arragon. !» eramand was a treacherous ally. H e oragged Henry V^IL into the war with France which ended in the annexation of Brittany to France. And when Marriages it Suited his purpose he threatened to dethrone be oP'***'" ^^^^i ^^^ ®v®^ offered Catherine of Arragon Arragon. to the King of Scotland. At length, as years passed, the marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine took place; but Prince Arthur soon after died. Then came negotiations for Catherine's marriage with Prince Henry (Henry VIII.), and on the death of his queeii Henry VII. offered to marry his late son's widow himself! At length, in 1503, the contract for the marriage with the Prince Henry was signed, but as Henry was not yet of age it could be set aside if any other alliance suited him better. It is well to mark how these royal marriages were merely a part of the foreign policy of princes, and that from the first there had been great lack of good faith as regards this marriage, on which so much of England's future history was to turn. Henry VII.'s domestic policy was in the main wise. ,r,,. King and usurper as he was, h e vet took HenryVII.'s " . '^ - ' , * — "T^ domestic grreat pams to conform tO ^n^ law ^f ^h<» ^^^' land, ^jistead of trying t ^ "^nkf ^^^ f^^r^^«r^ absolute, he remembered he was a constitutional monarch and could lew no taxes without consent of P^r liamftnt. Still, though a constitutional monarchy, the government of England in Tudor times was not conducted just as it is now. Parliament did not sit every year as it His position , __ . ' ' . . AS reganis docs now. Nor Were there as now a prime « Pailiament. minister and a cabinet of ministers represent- CH. ni. England. 53 ing the majority in Parliament, responsible to Parliament, remaining in office only so long as they can command a majority in Parliament, and giving place to another prime minister and cabinet as soon as they find themselves in a minority. The king had the reins of government much more in his own hands than the crown has now. He chose his own ministers, who were responsible to him alone. And as the regular annual revenues of the Crown were sufficient to pay for the ordinary expenses of government, and did not need voting by Parliament every year as they do now, it was only when he had a war on hand, or some- thing extraordinary happened needing fresh taxes or laws, that it was needful for a Tudor king to call a Parliament The chief minister of Henry VII. was Cardinal Morton, a true Englishman, though an ecclesiastic. He was a man of large experience. He was in . . middle life when Henry was bom. He was a Cardinal ' privy councillor, and faithful adherent of '^^^^^ Henry VI. Edward IV. had made him his Lord Chan- cellor, and his executor. Richard III. had thrown him into prison, but he had escaped in time to plan the enter- prise which proved successfiil at Bosworth Field, and to him Henry VII. owed his throne. Under the influence of Morton Henry VII. on the whole did what the weal of England required. With a strong hand he kept all classes subject to the lawT^f the land, quelled rebellion, and maintained internal pea ce and order. He was avaricious. ^, , .^^ but even in his most hard and unjust tained. exactions he kept within the letter of the law. !^n order to keep the nobility in check he favoured the growth and power of the middle classes — Middle class notably of the ' yeomen,' i,e, small landholders, fevoumi and tenant farmers. Thus he did much to conciliate the English nation 54 State of Christendom. tr, l after the long civil wars. He also paved the way for Paved the ^® unlon of England and Scotland by the way for the marriage of his daughter Margaret to the King England and of Scots. Being himself a Welshman, he Scotland. reconciled the Welsh to English rule. After a struggle of i,ooo years they at length were satisfied with union with England. Under the Tudor dynasty they ceased to feel themselves a conquered ciUateSthe* people, and though retaining their separate Welsh. language, ceased to rebel from what they no longer considered a foreign yoke. To th^se claims of Henry VII. to English respect we must add that, though not sagacious enough to And began patronise Columbus, he did theng^Ubest S|S'» Aipg-4nsendin^^ «npire. (^^g^'todlscover and claim for jCnglan3 a foothold across the ocean which proved the beginning o* those extensions of England in America in which half the English people now dwell. Thus he was the founder o f England's colonial empi re. Ut his later years we shall have to speak again. In the meantime it may help to fix some of these facts on the mind if we dwell a moment on his tomb. * His corpse' (says the chronicler) * was conveyed with 'funeral pomp to Westminster, and there buried by the rhetombof 'g^od queen, his wife, in a sumptuous and Henry VII. < solemn chapel, which he had not long 'before caused to be builded.' He was buried in a vault just big enough for himself and his queen, under the pavement in the centre of that beautiful chapel which still bears his name, and in which, round this central tomb, so many Tudor and Stuart princes were afterwards laid. When Henry VII.'s vault was opened in T869 there were found to be three coffins instead of two f The third was discovered to be that of James I. To CH. IV. The Necessity for Reform, 55 make room for it the wood had been stripped off the other two, leaving the inner lead coffins bare. The workmen engaged in this strange work were found to have quaintly scratched their names on the lead, with the date 1625. In that tomb of Henry VII. lie, therefore, not only the heirs of the two English contending factions of York and Lancaster, and of the traditions of Wales, but also the Scotch monarch who, thanks to the policy of his great- great-grandfather, Henry VII., ascended the English throne and became the first king of Great Britain. CHAPTER IV. THE NEED OF REFORM AND DANGER OF REVOLUTION. {d) The Necessity for Reform^ Now, after this review of the state of Christendom, it will be easy to see in what points it fell short of the demands of modem civilisation and wherein therefore reform was needful. We said that the first point towards which modem civilisation specially tended was this, viz., the formation of compact nations living peaceably side by side, respect- ing one another's rights and freedom. We have seen that the modem nations were fast forming themselves — that England, France, itaiyand and Spain were already formed, but that Italy Germany and Germany were lagging Car behind in this uni^' matter. 56 State of Christendom, tr, t But none of the nations were living peaceably side by side, and respecting one another's rights. They were at The lack of constant war, sometimes under the leadership SJT^d*** ^^ ^^^ ^°P^» ^^^^ * ^^^ °^ robbers, settmg Jtwuce. upon Venice, or Naples, or Milan ; then quarrelling amongst themselves, and forming fresh leagues to drive one another out. Their foreign policy was aggres- sive and wofully wanting in good faith. This want of public peace and international morality was a crying evil. It disturbed commerce, and its worst result was that it inflicted terrible hardships on the masses of the people. The voice of the French peasantry was clear upon this point. Here then was need for reform. The second great point aimed at by modem civilisa- tion was, that (looking within each nation) all classes ol the people were to be alike citizens, for whose common weal the nation was to be governed, and who were ultimately to govern themselves. Not only as yet had the masses of the people no share in the government of the nations of which they formed so large a part, but also they were very far from being re- garded as free citizens, except in England, where in theory they were so, though perhaps not much so in prac- Thc serfdom ^^^e. In Germany especially, the peasantry oftheGcr- remained still in serfdom, and feh their •antry still thraldom more keenly than ever. Here, continued. again, was a necessity for reform. We have already seen that there was a necessity for reform in that ecclesiastical system of Rome siasticjd and which opposed the free growth of the modem stsuJSi***^ nations, and in the scholastic system so needed intimately connected with it, which was op- '*°"° posed to free thought, science, and true religion, and prevented the diffusion of the benefits of knowledge and education among the masses of the people. CH. IV. The Necessity for Reform, 57 Now the question for the new era was, whether the onward course of modem civilisation was to be by a gradual timely reform in these things, tiv^ rdS^ or whether, reform being refused or thwarted, ? ^evoiu- It was to be by revolution. Recognising the necessity there was for reform, we have now to see the danger there was of revolution ; how far and wide, in fact, the train was already laid, waiting only for the match to explode it. ip) The Train laid for Revolution, It will not seem strange, (i), that it was among the oppressed peasantry of Germany that the xhe train train -was most effectually laid for revolution ; was laid or, (2), that when attempts had been made at StraL'^ revolution, they were aimed at the redress of P«*«n'«T both religious and political g^evances. The ecclesiastical grievances of the peasantry were as practical and real as those involved in their serfdom. The peasant's bondage to the priests and Their ecclc monks was often even harder than his bond- siasticai as age to his feudal lord. It was not only feudal that he had tithes to pay, but after paying gne^^ces. tithes, he still had to pay for almost everything he got from the church. That religion which should have been his help and comfort had become a system of extortion and fraud. These are the words of a contemporary writer (Juan dc Valdez, the brother of the secretary of the Emperor Charles V.), himself a Catholic, and well contcmpo. acquainted with the condition of things in Ger- rary tet- many : * I see that we can scarcely get anything ^*'°''- * from Christ's ministers but for money; at baptism money, • at bishoping money, at marriage money, for confession 58 State of Christendom. ft. l 'money — no, not extreme imction without money! They *will ring no bells without money, no burial in the church ' without money ; so that it seemeth that Paradise is shut ' up from them that have no money. The rich is buried in * the church, the poor in the churchyard. The rich man * may marry with his nearest kin, but the poor not so, * albeit he be ready to die for love of her. The rich may 'eat flesh in Lent but the poor may not, albeit fish * perhaps be much dearer. The rich man may readily get 'large indulgences, but the poor none, because he wanteth * money to pay for them.' We must remember, too, how galling to the peasant was the payment of the large and small tithes. These words were written in England, but they will serve for aU Europe: — ' They have their tenth part of all the com, meadows, * pasture, grass, wood, colts, calves, lambs, pigs, geese, and Another * chickcns. Over and besides the tenth part ol testimony. < every servant's wages, wool, milk, honey, wax, * cheese, and butter ; yea, and they look so narrowly after ' their profits that the poor wife must be countable to them * for every tenth t%%y or else she getteth not her rights at * Easter, and shall be taken as a heretic' Can we wonder that the peasants should rebel against this ? and that in Germany, where both feudal and eccle- siastical oppression was so galling, they should rebel against both, and mix the two together in their minds, demanding in one breath both religious and political freedom ? Surely there was reason in it. As early as the fourteenth century the Swiss peasants in the Forest Cantons had rebelled and thrown off the Successful yoke of their ancient feudal lords, and when the*siSss°^ the latter joined in a conamon cause against 13 "5, ' them, the Swiss were victorious in the battle of Morgarten, 131 5. Ch. IV. The Train laid for Revolution. 59 They did not sever themselves from the Empire all at once — indeed it was not till nearly two centuries after that the Swiss formally seceded — but they formed a league for purposes of mutual defence. They were soon joined by other neighbouring cantons, and their flag, with its white cross on a red ground, became the flag of a new nation, the Swiss confederacy, with its motto * Each for all, and all for each ' — a nation of free peasants and citizens inured to hardship and war, letting out their sons as soldiers to fight for pay, and, alas, not always on the side of freedom I Between 1424 and 1471 the peasants of the Rhaetian Alps did the same thing. Oppressed and insulted by their lords they burned their castles and threw off their yoke, and thus was formed the Grau- sants of ^ bund, in imitation of the Swiss confederacy, ^"^^"^^^ but separate from it. Referring to the map * Serfdom and Rebellions against iti we mark these two Swiss republics on it as the region where rebellion had met with success. It was no doubt their mountains which helped the Swiss peasants to suc- cess and independence. Their battles were little Mara- thons. At Morgarten 1,300 Swiss won the day against iQjXxx) Austrian troops. Their Alps were their protection. We mark next the region where the rebellion against Re me and the Empire, which followed in Bohemia upon the preaching of Wiclif and martyrdom of Huss, had been, after a long reign of terror, fui rebcUion and the Hussite wars (141 5-1436), quelled in 2^dsand^ blood. Hussite doctrines were indeed still Hussite held by the people, and by the treaty of 1436. Basle in some sense tolerated ; but this, never- theless, was the region where rebellion, springing out of the last era of light and progress, had been crushed to rise 00 more. 6o State of Christendom. n. u Now we have to mark where, in connexion with the new era, there were signs, as we have said, that a trdn was laid for a coming revolution. The first herald of the movement was Hans Boheim^ a drummer, who had appeared in 1476 in Franconia, on Thi«ats of the Tauber, a branch of the Main. He pro- F^conra b ^ssed to be a prophet, to have had visions M76. of the Virgin Mary, and to be sent by her to proclaim that the Kingdom of God was at hand, that the yoke of bondage to lords spiritual and temporal was commg to an end, that under the new kingdom there were to be no taxes, tithes, or dues ; all were to be brethren, and woods, and waters, and pastures were to be fi-ee to all men. A crowd of 40,000 pilgrims flocked to hear the prophet of the Tauber till the Bishops of Wiirz- burg and Mayence interfered, dispersed the ciowd and oumed the prophet. He was but a sign of the times — a voice crying in the wilderness ! But his cry was one which found a response in the hearts of the peasantry — freedom from the yoke of their feudal and spiritual lords, and the restoration of those rights which in ancient days had belonged to the community. This was the cry of the peasantry for many generations to come. The next was a much more formidable movement, The 'Bund- ^^'j ^^* named from the banner borne by the ichuh' peasantry, the Bundschuh, or peasant's clog. While the peasants in the Rhaetian Alps were gradually throwing off the yoke of the nobles and forming the in Kempten, Graubundy a struggle was going on between x49a the neighbouring peasantry of Kempten (to the east of Lake Constance) and their feudal lord, the Abbot of Kempten. It began in 1423, and came to an open rebellion in 1492. It was a rebellion against new demands not sanctioned by ancient custom, and though it was crushed, and ended in little good to the peasantry CH. IV. The train laid far Revolution, 6l (many of whom fled into Switzerland), yet it is worthy of note because in it for the first time appears the bannet of the Bundschuh. The next rising was in Elsass (Alsace), in 1493, the peasants finding allies in the burghers of the towns along the Rhine, who had their own grie- inEisas*, vances. The Bundschuh was again their "493. banner, and it was to Switzerland that their anxious eyes were turned for help. This movement also was prema- turely discovered and put down. Then, in 1501, other peasants, close neighbours to those of Kempten, caught the infection, and in 1502, again in Elsass, but this time fiirther north, in Both again the region about Speyer and the Neckar, "» xsox-a. lower down the Rhine, nearer Franconia, the Bund- schuh was raised again. It numbered on its recruit rolls many thousands of peasants from the country round, along the Neckar and the Rhine. The wild notion was to rise in arms, to make themselves free, like the Swiss, by the sword, to acknowledge no superior but the Em- peror, and all Germany was to join the League. They were to pay no taxes or dues, and commons, forests, and rivers were to be free to all. Here again they mixed up religion with their demands, and ' Only what is just be- fore God' was the motto on the banner of the Bundschuh, They, too, were betrayed, and in savage triumph the Em- peror Maximilian ordered their property to be confiscated, their wives and children to be banished, and themselves to be quartered alive. It would have been suicide on the part of the nobles to fulfil orders so cruel on their own tenants. They would have emptied their estates of peasants, and so have lost their services, for the con- spiracy was widely spread. Few, therefore, really fell victims to this cruel order of the Emperor. The ring- leaders dispersed, fleeing some into Switzerland and some 62 State of Christendom. rt. u into the Black Forest For tCD years now there was silence. The Bundschuh banner was furled, but only for a while. In 15 12 and 15 13, on the east side of the Rhine, in the Black Forest and the neighbouring districts of Wiir- Aboutthe temberg, the movement was again on foot Black Forest on a Still larger scale. It had found a leader indc/JoM in Joss Ffttz, A soldier, with conmianding Fnu. presence, and great natural eloquence, used to battle, hardship, and above all, patience, he bided his time. He was one of the fugitives who had escaped being 'quartered.' He hid himself for years in places where he was unknown, but never despaired. At length, in 1 512 he returned to his own land, settled near Freiburg, and began to draw together again the broken threads of the Peasants' league. He got himself appointed forester under a neighbouring lord, talked to the peasants in the fields, or at inns and fairs, and held secret meetings at a lonely place among the forests in the dusk of evening. There he talked of the peasants' burdens, of the wealth of their ecclesiastical oppressors, of the injustice of their blood being spilled in the quarrels of lords and princes, how they were robbed of the wild game of the forest and the fish in the rivers, which in the sight of God were free, like the air and the sun, to all men, how they ought to have no masters but God, the Pope, and the Emperor. Lastly, he talked to them of the Bundschuh, They went to consult their priest, but Joss had talked over the priest to his side, and he encouraged the movement. Then they framed their articles, and Joss defended them out of the Bible. They were first to seek the sanction and aid of the Emperor, and if he refused to help them then they would turn to the Swiss. There was a company of licenced beggars who tramped about the country with their wallets, beggingalms wherever CH. IV. The train laid for Revolution. 63 they went— a sort of guild, with elected captains. This guild Joss took into his confidence. They were his spies, and through them he knew what watches were kept at city gates, and through them he kept the various ends of the conspiracy going. His plans were now all laid. He wanted nothing but the Bundschuh banner. He got some silk and made a banner— blue, with a white cross upon it. The white cross was the Swiss emblem. Some of his followers would have preferred the eagle of the Empire. But how was the Bundschuh to be added ? What painter could be found who would keep the secret ? Twice he tried and was disappointed, and all but betrayed. At length, far away on the banks of the Neckar, he found a painter, who painted upon it the Virgin Mary and St John, the Pope and the Emperor, a peasant kneeling before the cross^ a Bundschuh, and under it the motto ' O Lord, help the righteous.* He returned with it under his clothes, but ere he reached home the secret was out. Again the League was betrayed. A few days more and the banner would have been unfurled. Thousands ol peasants were ready to march, but now all was over, the whole thing was out, and Joss Fritz, with the banner under his clothes, had to fly for his life to Switzerland. Everything was lost but his own resolution. Those conspirators who were seized were put to torture, hung, beheaded, and some of them quartered alive. But Joss Fritz was not disheartened. He returned after a while to the Black Forest, went about his secret errands, and again bided his time. In 15 14 the peasantry of the Duke Ulrich of WUrtem- berg rose to resist the tyranny of their lord, who had ground them down with taxes to pay for his reckless t„ ,„, • ^ ^ in 1514 u* luxury and expensive court The same year, WflrtemberF in the valleys of the Austrian Alps, in Carin- Austrian thia, Styria, and Camiola (Grain), similar ^'**" 64 State of Christendom. rt, i, risings of the peasantry took place, all of them ending in the triumph of the nobles. To defend themselves against such risings a league had been formed among the nobles of the whole district to The Swabian the north of Switzerland, called the Swabian s^^t the League^ and a proclamation was issued that peasant*. 'Since in the land of Swabia, and all over the 'Empire, among the vassals and poor people disturb- * ances and insurrections are taking place, with setting ' up of the standard of the Bundschuh and other ensigns ' against the authority of their natural lords and nders, 'with a view to the destruction of the nobles and all * honourable persons, the noble and knightly orders have * therefore agreed, whatever shall happen, to support each 'other against ^very such attempt on the part of the ' conmion man.' This brings forcibly into view again the fatal vice in the polity of feudal Germany — want of the consolidation of the German people into a compact nation. wWe"3»e For here were the peasantry of Germany bddVoir* appealing helplessly to some higher power to future revo- protect them from the oppression of their feudal lords, conspiring for a general rebellion for lack of it, and debating whether on the flag of the Bundschuh they should paint the eagle of the Empire or the white cross of the Swiss republic Here on the other hand were the nobles and knightly orders con- spiring by the sheer force of their combined swords to crush these ' attempts on the part of the common man. The crying need of both was for a German nation— a commonwealth — with a strong central power or govern- ment to hold the sword of justice between them, settling their disputes by the law of the land for their common weal. For lack of this there was rebellion and bloodshed These risings of ^^he peasantry were crushed for a while. CM. IV. The train laid for Revolution, 65 but Joss Fritz was only biding his time, and meanwhile let us bear in mind where, how far and wide over Central Europe, the train was laid, waiting only for the match to ignite it It is well to look once more on the map of serfdom, to fix these revolutionary localities in our mind, and before we pass away from them to mark how they lie, not in the region of darkest shadow, where serfdom was most complete — where a conquered Slavonian peasantry were in bondage too complete for rebellion — nor in the region of the crushed Hussite rebellions ; but in those regions next to the countries where serfdom had obtained least hold, and had passed away ; above all, in those mountain regions where the traditions 2d ^" of ancient freedom had lived the longest, where scrf- dom was at where the spirit of the people was least sub- a% worst, dued, and where the close neighbourhood of frU^<5S^a8 their fellow mountaineers of Switzerland kept nearest in an example of successful rebellion ever before their eyes. We may see in this way most clearly how these peasants' rebellions were not isolated phenomena, but parts ofa great onward movement beginning centuries back, which already had swept over England and France, and fre^ the peasants there, and now, in this era, had Germany to grapple with. Whether it was destined to be at once successful or not we shall see in this history, but we may be sure it was destined to conquer some day, because we cannot fail to recogpiize in it one of the waves of the advancing tide of modem civilisation. M.H, 66 The Protestant Revolution, pt. n. PART II. THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION, CHAPTER I. REVIVAL OF LEARNING AND REFORM AT FLORENCF- {d) The Revivers of Learning at Florence, The story we have now to tell begins at Florence Florence, as we have already noted, was a republic, but ^ jjj^ i^ differing from other Italian republics in thfe : pubUcof that while in others the nobles held power, '*"**' here in Florence, for some generations, the nobles had been dethroned. The people had got the rule into their own hands ; and so far had they carried their distrust of the nobles, that no noble could hold office in the city unless be first enrolled himself as a simple citizen. Florence had long been a great conmiercial city, and the public spirit of her citizens had helped to make her prosperous. Never had she been more prosperous than in the early days of her democracy. But every now and then there were troubled times ; and in such times, more than once or twice, a dictator had been chosen. Power in the Sometimes even a foreign prince had been hands of the made dictator for a stated number of years. ^ At length power had fallen into the hands of the wealthier families of citizens, and the chief of these was the family of the Medici. cH. I. Revival a7id Reform at Florence. Gj Cosmo de' Medici was for many years dictator. His great wealth, gained by conmierce, placed him in the position of a merchant prince. His virtues, comiuh and patronage of learned men and the arts, ^7^^^^ made him popular; and his popularity paved the way for the proud position held by his grandson, ' Lorenzo the Magnificent' Lorenzo de' Medici (of whose times we are to speak) had followed in Cosmo's footsteps, and had got into his single hand the reins of the state. He had Lorenzo de* set aside the double council of elected citizens, Medici» and now ruled through a council of seventy '*^'^' men chosen by himself. His court was the most brilliant and poHshed of his time, but in the background of his magnificence there was always this dark shadow — ^he held his high place at the expense of the liberties of the people of Florence. There was, however, much in his rule to flatter the pride of the Florentines. Under the Medici, Florence had become the * Modem Athens.' Their genius and wealth had filled it with pictures and statues, and made it the home of Florence the artists and sculptors. At this very moment, in ^9^^™ Lorenzo's palace and under his patronage, was young Michael Angela^ ere long to be the greatest sculptor and one of the greatest painters of Italy. Learning also, as well as art, had found a home at Florence. Michael The taking of Constantinople by the Turks Angela having driven learned men into Italy, here at Flo- rence, and elsewhere in Italy, the philosophy of Plato was taught by men whose native tongue was Greek. Cosmo de' Medici had founded the * Platonic ^ „ The Platonic Academy f and FicinOy who was now at the Academy. head of it, had been trained up under his ptciao. patronage. w % 68 The Protestant Revotution. ft. n, Politiam (Poliziano), the most briDiant and polished Latin poet of the day, was always at the palace, directing ^^^ the studies of Lorenzo's children, and ex- x4S4-i4g4; changing Gredc epigrams with learned ladies d^nSLn- o^ ^« <^0"^ To this galaxy of distinguished ^oU.^ men had recently been added the beautiful J"»